


Propagation

by Not Applicable (not_applicable)



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Crushes, Crying, Crying During Sex, Developing Relationship, Drunk Sex, Family, Fluff and Smut, Interracial Relationship, M/M, Magic, Magical Realism, Mpreg, No Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Pining, Pregnant Sex, Science Bros, Wishes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-24
Updated: 2013-11-23
Packaged: 2017-12-30 07:41:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1015946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/not_applicable/pseuds/Not%20Applicable
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony makes a wish.</p><p>“You turned that kid into Tom Hanks so I'm sure you can handle propagating the Rhodes bloodline through <i>me</i>, right?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Back when I wrote popslash in the early 2000s (don't judge me) we would write mpregs. They were magical introductions of babies into the folds of various boy bands and pop stars. And then I got into Marvel slash and found out that most/all mpregs are based in Alpha/Beta/Omega universes, where male pregnancy is the norm. I wanted go back to that shock and joy of an unexpected pregnancy. Did it work? Leave a comment and let me know! 
> 
> This story is set in MCU-verse immediately following the events of _The Avengers_. 
> 
> **IMPORTANT:** I tried to keep this as in-character as possible, and this is the MCU and _not_ 616 with it's representations of gender fluidity with characters like Loki and Death, so the people in this story have a very normative understanding of gender. They relate to it in a heteronormative way. This is not Tumblr, okay, it's fiction, and I did not write this story to address the diversity of gender and how identity is not contingent for a person to carry a child. This is a story about two cis-men getting knocked up. If you prefer not to read talk of traditional gender roles/expectations in childbirth, then do not read this story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: this chapter contains crying!sex, which is a [prompt fill](http://avengerkink.livejournal.com/17385.html?thread=39366889#t39366889) for avengerkink.

Tony never liked carnivals, fairs, boardwalks, any of that – not even as a kid. Well, he did, but he couldn't really enjoy them if he was with his parents – Dad was always too busy taking photos and giving impromptu speeches about his newest bomber or the future of flying cars to ever play a game or ride the Ferris wheel, and Mom never liked the smells or the noise or Dad – well, not really. At first, sure, but by the time Tony was able to walk and talk and beg for cotton candy, she was beyond being able to even share space with Howard. So it was either go to the carnival with Dad and be ignored, or _not_ go to the carnival with Mom and watch her do shots of Limoncello all night. Sometimes Jarvis could get a night off and take him, and that was always fun. Never a dull moment with that guy.

So why was Tony walking around a boardwalk at two in the morning with all of the rides shut down and most of the lights off and a brown-bagged Modelo in his hand? Because he'd called Rhodey and begged him to join him, to no avail.

“You're in the suit. You can be here in a flash.”

“Tony -” (an explosion drowned him out)

“Come on, squash those baddies so we can ride the Zipper. They close in an hour.”

“Kinda busy here...”

“I hate carnivals anyway.”

“Well, why are you – _fuck_ , I'll call you back.”

_(Because I'll find any excuse to hang out with you, duh.)_

That was four hours ago and Tony still hadn't gotten a call back. He went to a corner store and got a six-pack of cheap tall cans, and he only had one left now. He wasn't sure how he'd managed to avoid boardwalk security or if that was even a thing to begin with, so now he was just walking around and drinking and kicking himself for calling Rhodey in the middle of a firefight. Tony couldn't help it once he found out they'd deployed the War Machine – he was just so worried. Rhodey had to be used to it by now. Tony wasn't exactly subtle when it came to the things he wanted.

Tony sat down and leaned back against a claw machine, shaking his head. _(Rhodey is not a thing. He is not someTHING but someONE. The hottest and greatest someone on the fucking planet, too. The hottest and greatest and straightest.)_ Tony had been repeating that sentence in his head for decades now but it never helped, especially when Rhodey was happy to take his phone calls at all hours (Rhodey didn't _have to_ pick up during a firefight, but he did) and skinny-dip in Tony's heated pool and let him sit on his lap in the hot tub, sometimes even letting Tony doze off for a minute as he sat on him. Their friendship was warm in a way that was almost inappropriate when one considered Tony's feelings: touches and smiles lasting a little longer than necessary but never so long that Tony ever thought he had a chance. Tony had never flat-out asked about it, about _any_ of this, and maybe that was a little (a lot) messed up on his part, but he didn't want to be turned down by his hot military jock of a best friend, let alone make it awkward and lose the warmth that he already treasured more than most things in his life.

Tony's phone rang and he picked up without looking at the caller ID. “Rhodey.”

“Okay, Tony, baddies have been squashed.” Rhodey was winded and obviously calling from inside the suit. “I gotta stay in Qatar for a couple days but I'll be in New York at the end of next week. We can go to Coney Island if you want.”

 _(Yes, I want. I want and want.)_ “Sounds like a plan.”

“Where are you?”

“On the boardwalk in Venice Beach. There's a carnival in town.”

“I thought you hated carnivals. Are you drunk?”

“Probably.”

Rhodey laughed and Tony shut his eyes at the sound, comforting and warm and wrapped all around him. “Call Happy, go home. You're like an hour outside of Malibu, man.”

“Let's get on a ride. We're famous, I bet I can get them to turn one of these on for us.”

“I'm in the Middle East. Much further away than you seem to think.”

“Come _on_ , Dreamy, I just wanna -”

“Stay where you are, babe, I'm calling Happy.”

Rhodey hung up without another word and Tony actually did something even more pathetic than whining drunk on the phone to his crush: he stretched out on his back and threw an arm over his face, shaking his head. _(Might as well put it on a billboard. 'Tony Stark Lives The Queer Boy Tragedy By Falling In Love With His Straight Best Friend.')_ Tony tried not to get too emotional about the whole thing, but sometimes, after enough alcohol and enough reminders of loves long lost (and _especially_ whenever Rhodey called him “babe”), it couldn't be helped.

But then Tony forgot everything when he peeked from behind his arm to see that he was lying not beside a claw machine but right beside a fucking _Zoltar Speaks_. He sat up quickly with a smile on his face, remembering making wish after wish on the original one from the movie _Big_ at a party at Tom Hanks's place back in 1989. Back then he'd wished for a flying car and a woman with six boobs and a man with three dicks, so when he went fishing around in his pocket for a quarter he figured that this time around would be just as effective.

He shoved the quarter into the slot haphazardly and began spinning the knobs without caring where the ramp was aimed. He knew he was supposed to aim for Zoltar's mouth but he was too drunk to even stand anymore, still sitting on the boardwalk and just laughing at Zoltar's red eyes and gaping mouth. He remembered that party – Rae Dawn Chong and Judd Nelson were there, no-names were hiding their coke usage from Hanks because he wasn't into that scene, and Tony was at the Zoltar machine all night with Rhodey, the only non-famous person in attendance, laughing and feeding it quarters and wishing that either the Eagles or the Jets would win a Super Bowl.

 _Zoltar says make your wish_ , the machine began to flash at him, and Tony laughed out loud for some reason. “This is ridiculous,” he slurred as he pulled himself up onto his feet with the knobs, messing up the ramp's aim even more. Suddenly Tony's phone rang and he looked at it and saw a photo of Rhodey on the caller ID.

“ _God_ , Zoltar, just _look at him_.” And he held his phone up to the face of the mannequin inside of the glass case, it's mouth still opening and closing creepily. “He's so fucking dreamy, he's like – he's just – I want him, I want everything to do with him, okay? He's all muscly and super sweet and he puts up with my shit just beautifully.” Tony continued to let the phone ring, just staring at Rhodey's picture. “ _Fuck_ , I wanna, like, have his fucking babies or something.” He laughed at the preposterous nature of what he was asking and looked at Zoltar again, mouth gaping mechanically and eyes wide. “You turned that kid into Tom Hanks so I'm sure you can handle propagating the Rhodes bloodline through _me_ , right? I wanna be the lucky fuck that has Rhodey's first-born son.” The call ended and Tony sighed. He should have picked up but at this point he was probably too drunk to censor himself. “But I guess he's gotta fuck me first. Or _want to_ , at the very least.”

The next sign lit up and Tony realized he was supposed to launch his quarter into Zoltar's mouth, but instead he just slid down to lean against the game as he sat, his arms jostling the knobs yet again and his head bumping the red button intended to release the quarter. And it did, and it landed right in Zoltar's mouth.

 

“Wake up.”

Tony didn't even open his eyes. He knew it was Happy. Happy didn't ask again. He just leaned down and hoisted Tony up off of his ass and onto his feet, straightening out his clothes in the process. “Colonel Rhodes called,” Happy said as he checked around the ground for anything Tony might have dropped. “Said you've been out here since like eight.”

“He's so dreamy.” Tony was still drunk.

“Sure is,” Happy responded, smiling like he'd heard it a million times. “Muscly and dreamy.” He picked up Tony's empty beer and launched it into a nearby trash can, and then he leaned over to retrieve Tony's cell phone from the ground. He slipped it into Tony's pocket before leading him off to a waiting car, and while they were walking Tony noticed that Happy was turning a card over in his hands over and over again. Happy noticed his staring and presented the card to Tony wordlessly. It was from Zoltar and it said _your wish has been granted_ , but those were the only cards that Zoltar gave out when one managed to land a quarter in his mouth. So he just pulled out his phone to type up an email to Rhodey – an apology for calling him in the middle of a firefight.

 

* * *

 

A week later, Tony was in New York at Stark Tower and waiting for Rhodey to arrive. He had gotten the most painful part of his longing out of his system and now he was back in Crush Land, was just looking forward to spending time with his gorgeous best friend, going flying and drinking cheap American beer and eating entirely too much food. Rhodey would get to see the Avengers, too, and spend more time with them than he did at the shawarma restaurant after the battle in New York. He really wanted them all to like Rhodey. He wanted them to love Rhodey.

Tony was finishing lunch with Bruce and Clint when Rhodey walked in with Pepper, Rhodey carrying an olive-drab duffle and Pepper shoeless and chattering a mile-a-minute at him. Natasha and Steve were at the stove preparing dessert, but it was mostly just Steve glazing muffins and Natasha mumbling encouragement while staring at her nails. Thor was still off in Asgard, his return to Midgard undetermined as of yet. They all looked up at the plain-clothed military man with Pepper, all smiling and waving, polite as Tony could have hoped.

Tony was walking over while Rhodey shook Steve's hand and surprisingly shared a hug with Natasha – well, they'd known each other for two years, technically – and Pepper hid her grin as Tony threw an arm around Rhodey's shoulders while he and Natasha disengaged.

“When's the wedding?” Tony asked playfully, and Rhodey just shook his head and turned to hug Tony. Tony shut his eyes at the touch of Rhodey's big hands spreading and sliding along his back, but he opened them quickly when he remembered that they were not alone.

“Please stop getting drunk and calling me when I'm in the middle of a war zone,” Rhodey said to him, a laugh in his voice even though his words were quiet, clearly only meant for Tony.

“Stop picking up, then.”

Rhodey laughed out loud then, a little too loudly and right into Tony's ear, but he didn't mind. “Not an option, Tones.”

Tony didn't think about that. He wouldn't. He just stood up straight and turned towards the group, presenting Rhodey to them like they were at his debutante ball. “You've all met Rhodey before,” Tony said casually, “so no need for grand introductions. We're gonna go play right now but later on we're _all_ going on a field trip, okay? Coney Island. We'll meet down here at seven.”

 

Tony regretted inviting the whole team at first but he was glad for it in the end. It was nice to see Bruce come out of his shell a bit and talk with Rhodey about Bhutan, a place that they both loved for some odd reason. Natasha impressed Tony with how open and social she was towards Rhodey, but then again she didn't have many people in her life that she saw for longer than a few days, and he was glad to see that she felt she had a friend in Rhodey. Steve and Clint took to him swimmingly and _of course_ Pepper loved the guy, and by the time they got to Coney Island after dinner they were all a bit boozy and all-smiles, Natasha playing the ringer at shooting games and Steve breaking a high striker, sending the bell flying off right off of the end of it.

Tony and Rhodey ended up walking alone for a bit and Tony tried his best not to get all romantic over the smell of the ocean and funnel cakes all around them, bright lights and bells ringing and children running wild and happy. They walked past a _Zoltar Speaks_ and Tony did a double-take, drawing Rhodey's attention.

“You think Tom Hanks still has the one from _Big_?” Rhodey asked, and Tony shrugged.

“I saw one at the boardwalk in Venice last week, too.”

“Did you wish for a man with three dicks again?”

“No, just one.”

Rhodey laughed and Tony was glad he didn't have to talk about it anymore. “How ya been?” Rhodey asked, and Tony knew he didn't mean it in the casual _please-don't-be-honest-with-me_ way that most people used that statement.

“Tired,” Tony responded. “Still a bit shaky after you-know-who and you-know-what.”

“At least you can say you've seen a sky that no one else has, right?”

Tony sometimes forgot about that in the midst of the panic attacks and sleepless nights, so he was glad Rhodey reminded him. “Yeah.” The boardwalk stretched onto a pier and Rhodey went to lean against the railing, his arms spread far to grip the wood behind him. He ticked his head towards Tony and Tony leaned beside him, right against him, Rhodey's arm stretching diagonally across his back, and his hand came off of the railing to rest on Tony's hip.

“You didn't have to follow the fucking nuke into the wormhole, you know,” Rhodey said, but his voice was gentle. “It had it's own propulsion. Next time, just let go.”

 

Turned out the carnies got pretty pissed when Steve broke that game so they all headed back to the tower, where Pepper and the rest of the team turned in and allowed Tony and Rhodey to play around in his workshop, trying on prototype gauntlets and “testing” their “firing capacity” on boxes and old computers. There was a pool there and of course it was heated so of course they both stripped down and swam laps around each other, attempted to chicken-fight without partners and generally just splashed each other and acted like idiots. Back in Tony's room they sat on his bed in their boxers, legs folded beneath them as they shared a bottle of Johnnie Walker Diamond Jubilee and gossiped about the team.

“I think Cap's a virgin,” Tony said.

“Doubtful,” Rhodey laughed as he stretched out on the bed. “Look at the guy.”

“He's okay,” Tony said. “Air Force guys are sexier than Army guys.”

Tony knew he was being ridiculously forward, but he also knew that Rhodey would disregard it because they were both drunk. Rhodey arched a brow at him and chuckled, and Tony waited for him to shake his head but he didn't.

“I'm the only Air Force guy you know,” Rhodey said, reaching out for the bottle, but Tony didn't let it go once he grabbed it.

“Yeah.” Tony pulled back against Rhodey's grip and Rhodey pulled harder, his smile spreading as they began to tousle playfully. “My own private flyboy.” Rhodey pulled hard enough to bring Tony out of his sitting position and up onto his knees, and Tony began to laugh. “Mine, and mine alone.” Still too drunk but unconcerned. Rhodey wouldn't buy it.

Rhodey pulled again and Tony still didn't let go, and he found himself tipping forward and landing gracelessly along Rhodey's side, stretched out head-to-toe with him and lying halfway on top of him, both of their hands still on the bottle of scotch. But then Rhodey let go to run a hand up Tony's side, his touch and his eyes soft in a way that always made Tony think a little too hard.

“May _be_ ,” Rhodey said quietly, still caressing Tony's side. “I can't imagine cuddling in my boxers with _any_ guy besides you.”

“Not even Captain America?” Tony was nervous. He had to make a joke in order to diffuse the situation.

Rhodey didn't laugh, didn't even smile any wider. “I'm glad I came to visit,” he said. “Your friends are awesome and I really missed you. Haven't seen you in a while since S.H.I.E.L.D. stole you away.”

“I miss you, too,” Tony said, and he knew he was saying it in present tense but he didn't care. “I miss you so fucking much, Rhodey.”

Tony was sure he was the one who made the first move but he couldn't deny the way Rhodey pushed back at him in their kiss, the way his lips parted and his tongue eased into Tony's mouth and he leaned up off of the bed to wrap an arm around Tony and pull them flush together, right on top of him. Tony dropped the bottle of scotch and slipped one leg between Rhodey's, their crotches brushing through millimeters of Egyptian cotton. Rhodey thrust up at Tony and moaned into his mouth, framing Tony's face with one hand and letting his other slide further down his side, running over his ass a few times before stopping there with a firm _don't-go-anywhere_ grip. Tony could have growled at that, at feeling Rhodey's strength, knowing that it was directed at him and bent on keeping him there, keeping him in this kiss.

“I miss you,” Tony said again, and he straddled Rhodey's hips then, unabashed in the way he rubbed their crotches together as they continued to kiss, his hips sliding garishly in a back and forth motion while Rhodey gripped his ass with both hands now. He was sitting up again, chasing Tony's mouth as his hands moved further down and towards the center, the tips of his fingers now easing between Tony's cheeks. Tony broke the kiss for a moment to look into Rhodey's face – he was drunk, yes, but the hands kneading at him seemed purposed, hellbent, and Tony felt himself flush deep red when Rhodey's fingertips skated across his hole, teasing him through the fabric of his boxers.

“Fuck,” he moaned against Rhodey's mouth. He arched back, wanting more, and he wouldn't be denied – Rhodey's fingers had a rhythm to them now, a pace that had Tony rock hard against Rhodey, his mind swimming in shock that this was even happening, that Rhodey wanted to touch him in this way.

“You sure?” Tony asked, whispered, his voice embarrassingly shaky. “Because I mean, I...” And he shuddered at Rhodey's touch, at his kiss on his neck. “You know that I really...” Tony's eyes felt like they were burning and his throat tightened, so he stopped talking and let Rhodey lay him back on the bed, let him take off his boxers and remove his own.

“I know,” Rhodey said, mumbled along his neck and down his chest, and Tony turned his face away and muffled a sob when he felt Rhodey's mouth on him, sucking lightly at the tip of his cock before slipping down carefully and back up, then a bit more, then more, and soon his nose brushed Tony's pubic hair and Tony was crying beneath him, so fucking happy and actually believing in blessings for once in his life. Rhodey's fingers teased at his hole while he sucked Tony, small circles and light brushes, and soon he was lifting Tony's legs in the air and pulling his cheeks apart, his tongue a mess of motion against Tony's entrance. Tony ran his hands along Rhodey's head, his hair too short to grip, and Rhodey moved away to ease a finger inside of him, curling it. Lights flashed behind Tony's eyelids and he literally wailed out loud, his eyes flying open to find Rhodey watching him, caressing him on the inside as he stared with what seemed to be _wonder_ at Tony's pleasure.

“Is it good?” Rhodey asked and Tony nodded, his “yes” coming out muddled and thick around his moans. Rhodey was stroking himself with his free hand, his cock thick and dark like the rest of him, rigid and muscled in its own way. Tony's head was swimming more from shock and arousal than from the alcohol at this point. He couldn't take what he was seeing, Rhodey stroking himself off and fingering Tony with two fingers now, purposely skating over his prostate, purposely making Tony tremble and whimper through his tears.

“Please, Rhodey,” Tony whispered, and he spread his legs further, wider, the implication clear from his position. “Do it, take it, come on, I _cannot_ fucking do this anymore – _god_ , I miss you, please, just -”

“I know,” Rhodey said again, his voice shaky and his cock shining in his hand now. Tony hadn't even seen him get the lube out but now he could feel that Rhodey's fingers were cool and slick, working lube inside of and all around him, and then Rhodey leaned down and wrapped both arms around Tony, then leaned back and hoisted Tony up into his lap, his cock pulsing against Tony's entrance. Tony slid forward and let out a breath as Rhodey eased inside, slowly at first, but then Rhodey rocked upward and took Tony by the hips, sliding all the way home, and Tony sobbed again, dropping his head on Rhodey's shoulder to spare himself the embarrassment. He felt absolutely perfect as he moved up and down on Rhodey's cock, blissed out and beautiful as his body vibrated with pleasure. Tony pulled in a long sniffle and tried to dry up his blabbering as he moved faster, Rhodey was so thick and he felt so full, so _right_ with Rhodey inside of him.

Rhodey was moving to lay back now, his hands light on Tony's back as he pulled him down, too. They met in a warm kiss and Tony tried to hide his face again, but he felt Rhodey's hand on his chin, nudging them face-to-face.

“It's okay,” Rhodey said, and Tony's vision went watery and his breath caught in his throat, and his voice only came again when Rhodey's thighs slapped against him, strong and firm.

“I miss you, Rhodey,” Tony said, barely intelligible through the rhythm of their sex, and he knew that he ought to just fucking say 'I love you,' but he couldn't. Sex was one thing but he couldn't be _that_ naked, not yet. “Don't leave – don't stay gone like that.” He hated it when Rhodey went to war. He couldn't sleep on those nights. “I miss you so much.”

“I miss you, too,” Rhodey breathed, his eyes hooded and sweat misting his skin, making him glow in the dim light. Rhodey hips pistoned up at him as he placed one hand on Tony's hip to bring Tony down onto his cock, making Tony gasp as something began to coil in a warm knot in his belly. Tony felt Rhodey's other hand wrapped around his cock and he yelled, clenching hard around Rhodey, his muscles seizing as the touch alone made him come. Rhodey's hips slowed just a bit, swiveling at him, fucking him through it, making Tony shout and shake and eventually collapse on top of Rhodey in a sweaty heap.

Rhodey was still hard and throbbing inside of him, leaking so much that Tony could feel it running down his legs, and he began to move again, slowly at first. He heard Rhodey sigh and Tony moved up onto his elbows, their faces inches apart so he could watch Rhodey swoon and gasp with blinking eyes and an open mouth.

“Tony, _fuck_ , you're so good,” he grunted, his face twisted as if he was trying to hold back, and Tony leaned down to suck his lip. Tony moved faster because he didn't know why this was happening or if it would ever happen again. So he wanted it all, everything Rhodey had, every drop, and he planted his hands on Rhodey's chest and began to ride him in earnest, making Rhodey go breathless.

“C'mon,” Tony managed, slurring, and he swore Rhodey whimpered at that as his own hips started to join in. “Give it to me, come in me...” Rhodey's hands moved to Tony's hips as he thrust with him, their bodies thumping together because Tony was drunk and fucking Rhodey hard and all he could think about was being full of Rhodey's cock and his come and his _everything_ , and soon Rhodey was moaning and his eyes were shutting and he was holding Tony down on him, thrusting as deep as he could as he came hard inside of him. “Come in me,” Tony said again, and he squeezed and slid greedily, milking Rhodey dry, taking it all, everything. Rhodey's moan went ragged and he was still coming as he began to sink back down onto the bed, and eventually he lay still, his chest heaving.

Tony eased off of Rhodey carefully and moved to lay beside him, on his stomach with his face on Rhodey's shoulder. _What the hell was THAT?_ he wanted to ask. Rhodey had _clearly_ done that before – he had basically just banged the shit out of Tony, had fucked him so good that he cried almost the entire time – was _still crying_ as they caught their breath. Rhodey reached over and wiped Tony's cheeks, pulling him close with the arm that was beneath him. Rhodey kissed Tony, long and sweet and passionate.

“I don't know if that was a good idea,” Rhodey said along Tony's mouth. “But I don't regret it.”

“I miss you,” Tony said again, so inadequate, so wrong, and simply not enough.

 

*

 

The next morning Tony woke with Rhodey beside him, not hugging him but with his face pressed along his shoulder. Tony looked to see a bottle of Johnnie Walker spilled all over his carpet and their boxers on the floor, and his backside felt sticky. His head pounded and he could already tell that his eyes were swollen and puffy without even looking at them.

_(What the hell was THAT? You got drunk and fucked your best friend, that's what.)_

Tony sighed and clenched his jaw, mortified but determined not to wake Rhodey up. Tony remembered everything in startling detail, almost as if they hadn't been drunk at all. He remembered Rhodey's kiss, the way he felt inside of him, how he didn't shy away from Tony's words or even his tears. Rhodey made love with strength and power but he was still so gentle, too kind for Tony to feel weak for such a display even after the fact. It was almost like a fucking dream, nothing _at all_ like any other drunken sexual experience he'd ever had. He was used to just pounding away when he was wasted and fucking but _last night_...that was something completely different.

“Morning.” Tony peeked over to see Rhodey's bloodshot eyes staring back at him, a horrible hangover dominating his features. Tony smiled and he hoped it looked sincere, because it was, hangover be damned.

“You look like shit,” Rhodey said, and Tony just laughed. “I feel like it, too.”

“Rough night,” Tony said, and Rhodey smirked knowingly. _Well, there's nothing for it_ , he figured. “So what happens now, Rhodey?”

Rhodey reached up and gave Tony's chest a warm rub, and he rolled over to fling an arm across him. “I still don't regret it,” Rhodey said. “But I think we should sleep some more right now. Talk about it in the morning.”

“It _is_ morning.”

“Afternoon.”

Tony smirked, then leaned down to press a light kiss onto Rhodey's lips. His heart leapt when he wasn't pushed away, and then they sank back into the mattress to continue sleeping.

 

They got up at one in the afternoon to have lunch and not talk about it. Then they went to Tony's workshop for a while, where Bruce joined them and they continued to not talk about it. Rhodey had a conference call in the afternoon and at dinner they also couldn't talk about it, and finally that evening they were alone in Tony's bedroom again, and Rhodey was packing his bag.

“I got called back to Edwards,” he said, his face somber. “I'm _so_ sorry, I really am, but I gotta jet. I'll be back – I don't know, I'll probably have a weekend next month, or you can come out there – but I gotta find out what they want with me first...” He frowned at Tony, undoubtedly at the look on Tony's face, and he walked up and pulled Tony into a warm hug. Tony hadn't spoken since Rhodey said he had to leave, but he figured he didn't have to, anyway.

“I'm really sorry,” Rhodey said again, and he kissed Tony's temple softly. “You're my best friend, okay, and we're gonna figure out where we stand after this -”

“I know where I stand,” Tony said, and he pulled back to look into Rhodey's eyes, to feel his own heart sink at the weight they carried, the expression that looked an awful lot like hesitation. That was too much, just too fucking much for Tony and he had already slept with Rhodey, had cried while they did it, and now...so he just reached out and took Rhodey by the back of his neck, pulling him in for a deep kiss because he didn't know why _any_ of this had to happen and maybe this would be the last time he ever kissed him. Tony's only comfort was that Rhodey didn't resist, didn't hesitate at all, actually rested a hand at the base of his spine and kissed him back, long and warm like their kisses the night before.

“I'll have a weekend soon,” Rhodey said, and he sounded a bit breathless. “I don't regret _anything_ , Tony. This isn't over, okay?”

Tony didn't believe that at all. “Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone commented and made me realize that some of you won't know what Zoltar is or won't have heard of or seen the movie _Big_ with Tom Hanks, which came out in 1988. I'm in my thirties, and I loved that movie as a kid. [This is Zoltar Speaks](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fWZ4c66V1P4), a rare carnival game that alleges to grant wishes when the player lands a quarter in his mouth. Of course it doesn't in real life, but this isn't real life ;-)


	2. Chapter 2

Great. Just fucking great. Two weeks and Rhodey hadn't called or texted Tony. He'd sent a couple of emails but they were short and dull, not acknowledging the elephant in the room. He always told Tony he missed him and that he would call soon, but nothing more.

So Tony hung out in New York for a while and sulked, drank a little too much and worked on new suits. Everyone seemed to notice his sullen nature and they'd poke at him gently, Bruce one day offering to go for a walk because it might cheer Tony up, when Tony hadn't even said he was sad. Steve quite plainly asked Tony what was wrong one day, and he just shook his head and mumbled about being busy as he walked away towards his lab, where he sat on a stool and cried for about three minutes before erasing the security footage of it.

Pepper and Happy joined him in New York for a couple days – he'd gotten a little too drunk the night before and ended up hungover all day, his headache going away but the nausea sticking around past dinnertime. He barely ate that night, just a little rice, and he sat on a patio with Pepper and Happy as he drank a half-pour of scotch in a tall glass of club soda.

“I don't think the scotch is gonna help your stomach as much as the soda would,” Pepper said, but she couldn't really talk – she was finishing her second Manhattan.

Tony just shrugged it off and turned up his drink, and Happy grinned around his beer. “So Boss, how'd it go with you and Dreamy?” Happy asked, and Tony nearly choked. “He came out here a few weeks ago. Did you finally grow some balls?” Pepper nudged Happy but she was laughing brightly, her eyes crinkling shut with mirth.

“It went okay,” Tony said, and Pepper's laughter softened once she noticed the look on his face. “We're...we've been emailing but...it's awkward.”

“What happened?” Pepper asked, sitting up sharply, and her expression went grave with realization. “ _No._ Tony, you _didn't_.”

Happy's jaw dropped and he threw both hands in the air as he let out a mournful wail, obviously realizing what had happened as well. “No way. _Please_ tell us you didn't sleep with him.”

Tony wanted to laugh but he wouldn't – they really did seem distraught. “Well, we all went to Coney Island, right?” Tony began hesitantly, watching Pepper nod and lean closer. “And you guys know how carnivals make me all...” And he trailed off there when Happy and Pepper began talking over each other, gesturing wildly and shouting.

“Tony, why?!”

“Christ, were you drunk?”

Tony nodded into his Collins glass and he couldn't help giggling at the frustrated yowl that Pepper let out. “You drunk-fucked Rhodey?” she asked, her expression dumbfounded. “You got drunk and had sex with your best friend _and_ crush. Are you a masochist? And anyway, I thought you said he was straight? And he was able to...you know...” And Pepper made a fist before opening it quickly while her lips made a muffled explosion noise.

“Yes,” Tony said as he fought off the redness in his face. “I was as shocked as you are.”

“Well that means he's into you, at least.”

“Yeah, I just need to call him -”

“You do,” Happy said firmly, “like tonight. Like, right now.” Tony mumbled a protest as Happy checked his watch, and then he stood and gently nudged Pepper on the shoulder. “It's only eight in California right now. Pepper, let's play some pool.”

“Wanna bet twenty on it?” she asked as she stood.

“You got it,” Happy responded, and they left the patio without another word in Tony's direction.

Tony looked down at his phone and groaned. Nothing for it. He dialed Rhodey's number and it only rang once before he picked up.

“Hey.”

“You done for the day?”

“Yeah, I'm at home already. What are you up to?” Rhodey sounded normal, calm.

“Drinking club soda,” Tony said. “Been sick all day. It's my own fault, though.”

“Hangover, right? You know it's bad when you can't stop puking.”

“Yeah.”

There was a heavy silence between them for a moment, and Tony pinched his leg. Goddamnit, he couldn't remember the last time he felt like he couldn't just talk to Rhodey. He'd really fucked things up.

“I'm sorry I had to leave so quickly,” Rhodey said suddenly. “I was able to get a three-day weekend next month. You wanna come out to California, or should I just fly to New York?”

Tony felt a hot surge of relief flood through his entire body. Rhodey wanted to see him. “I can come out there,” he responded as coolly as possible. “My workshop's better in Malibu and I have an _insane_ new suit idea that you have got to check out. Also, I need to measure you for some new boots. I heard what happened in Syria. I don't want your foot controls going out again.”

“Yeah, thanks. I nearly shit myself when that happened.”

“Stop letting those DOD scientists fuck with my tech, seriously. Just bring it to me, I know the thing up and down.”

“The DOD guys aren't that bad, Tony, they know what they're doing.”

“Not when your repulsors start blinking out at 9,000 feet.”

Now they were back on track. Now they were rambling and jabbing at each other again – even though they still hadn't talked about the elephant in the room, and Tony was going to see Rhodey in a few weeks. That was good.

 

* * *

 

Tony's face wrinkled behind his welding mask and he gave a cough. The smell of the molten metal was making his stomach clench and roll, and finally he put down the torch and turned away, walked away, coughing and clutching his gut. Smells were bothering him nowadays, anything too hot or too strong. Cooking meat, hot metal, garlic, all of it just set him off and sometimes even made him vomit. He'd yelled at Clint one day for making a pot roast and apologized the entire time he puked into the kitchen trash, Clint giggling at him throughout the ordeal.

He was in California now and working on a prehensile suit, an idea so badass that he couldn't wait for Rhodey to finally get here and see it. Hopefully Tony wouldn't be sick the entire time. He'd ordered Thai for dinner for them – plenty of hot curry for Rhodey and some cold noodle salad for himself. No hot peppers, no garlic, vegan. That shouldn't bother him too much.

Tony stood up straight and tried to take a deep breath but his lungs filled with the bitter scent of molten platinum and titanium, and he dashed to the bathroom, barely reaching the toilet before he puked up his entire (extremely light) lunch of jasmine rice and green onions. Fuck, would he ever be able to enjoy a meal again? He'd gone to the doctor and they hadn't found anything, so Tony guessed he'd just have to ride it out.

“Hey, you okay?” Tony heard and it was Rhodey, and Tony tried to nod as his stomach wretched again and again. He heard the sink turn on and after a moment there was a cool rag on his neck, making him sigh and staving off his nausea for a while. Once Tony was sure the vomiting spell had passed he leaned back on his heels and sighed, reaching back to rest a hand on top of Rhodey's. He immediately regretted that decision and took the rag from under Rhodey's hand, sliding it around to wipe his face and mouth. Rhodey's hand moved from his neck to his shoulder, rubbing gently.

“Pepper told me you were having GI trouble,” Rhodey said, and Tony tried to hide his smirk at the _double_ _entendre_ of that. _(Yes, yes I am.)_

“Yeah, I just keep puking,” Tony said. “Haven't been able to keep real food down for a couple weeks now.” He stood with Rhodey's help and grabbed a toothbrush off of the countertop. Tony began preparing to brush his teeth and Rhodey went out into the workshop, picking things up and reading the holographic displays on Tony's computers. Tony finished up quickly and joined Rhodey where he stood at a table looking at hand-drawn sketches of the prehensile suit.

“It's _so_ badass,” Tony said, and Rhodey looked up with a grin. “I mean it's not even near completion but I've got some great simulations you can check out.” Rhodey was still just smiling as he put down the sketchpad and flung an arm around Tony's shoulder. Tony put an arm around Rhodey's waist and they stood that way for a moment. “It's nice to see you.” Rhodey smiled wider but he didn't move, didn't lean in to kiss Tony or even hug him proper. Tony couldn't help shaking his head and looking away. This was nice but it felt forced somehow, like Rhodey didn't want to be there. Was Tony imagining it or would things never be the same between them again?

“What's wrong?” Rhodey asked.

“This,” Tony responded quickly, his disappointment overwhelming him for a moment. “This, the way you're – everything's messed up now, right? We got drunk and had _amazing_ sex, and now everything's different. I fucking hate it.”

“It doesn't _have to_ change everything,” Rhodey responded. “It's up to us how this goes, you know? We don't have to let anything change because of that.”

_(But I WANT things to change. I want everything to change.)_

“I told you, Rhodey,” Tony said, looking to him again. “I mean you _have to_ know, right? It's not a joke, it's not something I...” _Shit_. Tony's throat closed up on him and heat rushed into his eyes again. He didn't like the fact that Rhodey could effect him this way. He felt so weak. Tony's emotions had been a mess over the past month anyway and he wasn't sure he could make it through a conversation like this one.

“I know,” Rhodey said. “And I want you to know that you really are the most important person in my life, okay? Everything starts and ends with you, Tony, but it's bigger than you and me. We're not just regular guys, you know? We're basically superheroes now and I'm in the military...I can't – I mean I don't know if...”

Tony wondered how long Rhodey had practiced this speech, how long he'd thought it through and determined exactly the best way to let Tony down. Rhodey wasn't saying _no_ , not outright – it was more of a _can't_ than a _won't_ , but that was still remarkably disappointing.

“I wouldn't want to put your job at risk,” Tony said, and Rhodey nodded in appreciation. “But I just want...I want you all to myself. And I'm offering you the same. How's that? Can we try that?”

Rhodey's smile spread like a wildfire across his face and he turned towards Tony, wrapping his arms around him. “Yes,” he said. “We can give that a shot.”

Tony hugged Rhodey tight, just breathing, so relieved, and he felt a tear slide down his cheek when Rhodey pressed a hand to his chest and kissed him, his other hand on Tony's back and holding them close together. Tony chuckled and turned his head away, embarrassed.

“Sorry,” he said thickly as he wiped at his face, “I don't know what's wrong with me lately. I watched _The Color Purple_ last night and totally just fell apart. I can't stop crying.”

“I'm sorry,” Rhodey said a little too earnestly. “I shouldn't have left you hangin' like that -”

“No, it's not your fault,” Tony said. “Feels hormonal or something. I'm not even sure what that means.” They both laughed and stepped apart just a bit, the air more comfortable between them now. “There's food upstairs if you're hungry.”

 

Rhodey raised an eyebrow at Tony's light dinner but said nothing, just dug into his own as they watched television and chatted. After dinner they cleaned the kitchen and took a shower together, which started awkwardly but ended with Tony on his knees with Rhodey's cock in his mouth, water raining down on him as he sucked and swallowed. They went to the bed and Rhodey pressed Tony face-down into the mattress, licked his ass and fingered his hole until Tony was begging him again, spreading himself for Rhodey and bucking back against the head of his cock until he eased forward and sank into Tony, sliding in to the hilt in one delicious stroke.

Rhodey leaned forward and draped himself over Tony's body, pressing them flush together as he moved in and out, Rhodey's lips hot at Tony's ear. “You've got the hottest ass, babe,” Rhodey breathed, and he threaded their fingers together. “You feel so fucking good.” _Do not cry_ , Tony thought, and he breathed deep, letting it out in a long moan as the bed began to rock. Tony's tendency towards bursting into tears was really starting to baffle him but he didn't want to think about that right now, not when Rhodey was wrapping his arms around him and pulling him up onto his knees, making his moans climb an octave.

“Oh _fuck_ , Rhodey,” Tony whimpered, eyes fluttering. “I love it, I fucking love it.” He knew he should say 'I love you,' but now that they'd agreed to “try,” whatever _that_ means, he knew that it was a little too early for words like that.

“Show me,” Rhodey said, and he leaned forward and pressed a palm to Tony's chest before sitting up with him, leaning all the way back to sit up against the pillows, and he nudged Tony's legs onto either side of his own. “Ride my cock, show me how much you love it.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Tony was trying to figure out how to trick Rhodey into marrying him, but right now he was pressing both hands and feet into the mattress, Rhodey's hands on his hips and gently guiding Tony as he moved up and down, letting Tony set their pace and he kissed the back of his shoulder. “Yeah,” Rhodey breathed there, and he reached around to grab Tony's cock, stroking it a little too fast but it was perfect, making Tony's arms tremble until he couldn't hold his weight up anymore, and soon he was resting against Rhodey's chest, reaching back with one hand to caress his lover's face. Rhodey took his leg with his free hand and held it up, his own hips taking over now, his hand swiveling around the head of Tony's cock, and Tony came with a groan, squeezing around Rhodey and making a mess across his stomach and chest. Rhodey gave a pained grunt and thrust hard into Tony, then again, releasing himself inside of Tony with a sigh.

Rhodey slumped down against the pillows and Tony extended his legs and rested against Rhodey, his head back on Rhodey's shoulder and their hands clasped together on Tony's stomach, messiness disregarded. Tony decided he was already a big fan of this “trying” thing, even if it meant that there were certain things that he still couldn't say. Rhodey seemed to be into it, too – _quite_ into it, if Tony didn't say so himself. Rhodey was already a pro at fucking men (though sometimes things can just come naturally) and he adored Tony's body, Tony's _ass_ to be specific, and that was shocking in a way. What had changed? How did decades of politely humoring a crush suddenly turn into mind-blowing sex and “trying”?

Tony went to sit up and his head gave a great spin at the change in equilibrium, and his stomach jumped in response. “Oh god,” he warbled as he groped for the trash can, and he barely had it up to his face before he started vomiting. Now what the hell was _that? Really?_

Rhodey was there again with a cool towel and a hand on his shoulder. “Weird,” he said.

 

Rhodey fell asleep eventually and Tony sent a text to both Pepper and Happy. _You can stop worrying now. We agreed to 'try.' OMFG he actually likes me._

Pepper responded with a quick _of course he does, thank god_ and Happy with _Tony and Dreamy sitting in a tree_ , and Tony just chuckled and went down to his workshop, where the War Machine was waiting for him. He figured he'd just get rid of it and make Rhodey a whole new suit, War Machine Mark 2. He didn't like to think about Rhodey falling 9,000 feet out of the sky just because some DOD bozo was too proud to call Tony Stark and ask for pointers. Tony had his own suits to worry about, too, and he'd started embedding sensors into his body to call the prehensile suit to him when needed. He'd put the sensors into his abs and obliques earlier that day. He figured he should check them to make sure they weren't roaming about in his body.

The War Machine was all beat up and scratched to hell and back, covered in Syrian mud and Afghan dust and what looked to be the remains of a pigeon or two. Tony grinned at the brushed metal and was reminded of times when they'd set their repulsors on low and go skeet shooting at 20,000 feet, Rhodey whipping clay disks into the air like frisbees and Tony shooting them out of the sky before the wind currents carried them away. Rhodey would grab onto him and send them both spiraling through the sky, their laughs and shouts coming across as unmitigated noise to anyone who could have heard their comms. Tony wondered about all of those moments, wondered if he should have seen this coming, if he should have known that Rhodey would say yes to trying. Pepper seemed to think that Rhodey's returned interest was to be expected, but Tony thought that perhaps that said more of how highly she thought of Tony than of any signal Rhodey had ever given her.

Tony went and stood at his x-ray, an open-air thing that took a photo in a flash and didn't expose him to much radiation. He wondered if Rhodey would be down for a prehensile War Machine, but he didn't think the guy would be into having sensors permanently embedded in his skin. Tony heard the machine whirring and he held still for a moment, moving again once he saw that it was rendering a 3-D image of his abdomen for him. He walked over to a table and grabbed a glass of scotch he'd left down there earlier, unfinished because of a vomiting spell. He knew the scotch probably wasn't good for his stomach but he was tired of eating bland food and avoiding welding because of the smell. He could keep scotch down, at least.

He glanced up at the 3-D x-ray and gave it a spin, giggling at the sight of poop in his colon and nodding in approval when he saw that the sensors had not moved at all since he implanted them. And then he saw something that he'd never seen before, a tiny little dot that the x-ray had highlighted in pink. He pushed away the layers of the image and blew up the little blip – something small and curled in on itself like a shrimp or a crawfish but _tiny_ like a tadpole...he blew up the image more and saw a little tail, protrusions on each side...fins, arms...

“JARVIS,” he said quickly, frantically, approaching the hologram. “What the hell is _that_? What is it, why is it in me, I – is it a fucking parasite or something? Did I – I mean is _that_ why I can't stop fucking puking, because the Chitauri put a goddamned alien tapeworm in me?” Tony was unraveling at the idea of an alien being inside of him, remembering that movie from his childhood and Sigourney Weaver splattered in blood once the chest-burster made itself known during a crew dinner. He took a seat on a nearby stool and knocked back a long swig of scotch. “Jesus Christ – JARVIS, come on, talk to me.”

“Sir,” JARVIS began, “my analysis shows that there is a human fetus gestating in your abdomen.”

“What?” It was the only thing he could think to say. “No.”

“The fetus has not presented a gender as of yet, but analysis of it's size and weight determine that it will be ready for expulsion in about seven months and three weeks.”

Tony looked at the drink in his hand. He thought of beer, of Modelo and the carnival and Zoltar. He put his drink back on the tabletop as his stomach began to rumble again, and he dropped to his knees and crawled to a trash can, puking hard, so hard that tears began to stream down his face.

 

* * *

 

Great. Just fucking great. Tony didn't want to believe it but he knew that in today's world, where gods landed on flying jets and men survived 70 years on ice, scientists with monsters inside of them and 80-year-old assassins who looked 25 at most...was it so hard to believe that a carnival game got him pregnant? Granted him a wish?

All the puking, the mood swings, back aches, the uncontrollable crying spells, his use of the word “hormonal”...it was all making sense to him now. Tony was five weeks pregnant with Rhodey's son. It _had_ to be Rhodey's and it _had_ to be a boy. That's what he'd wished for.

He was downstairs still, just staring at his x-ray and drinking water. _(Seven months and three weeks of no scotch.)_ He wanted to kick himself – he'd been getting rather blitzed after Rhodey's perceived rejection weeks ago, and who knows what all that alcohol had done to the kid. He'd have to get himself checked out as best he could.

He wanted to kick himself again. Here he was planning to have this kid – hadn't even questioned whether or not he'd have it – but he was born a man, someone with no natural-born mechanics to carry a fetus or give birth to one. He had no idea how he was supposed to get this kid out of him, anyway. He had no idea how his body would respond to a thing growing inside of it. Would it wrap the kid in pus and scar tissue, like a tumor or a foreign body? Tony thought of finding that traveling carnival and confiscating that Zoltar machine. Loki could have left it for him, or it could be a Hydra leftover from decades ago. It probably wasn't safe to have a thing like that out in the public, waiting to get men pregnant and turn teenage boys into Tom Hanks.

Then there was the fact of having to tell Rhodey. Tony knew that Rhodey would think he was crazy, and the absolute worst case scenario would be that Rhodey would treat him like an alien, like something contaminated, and insist that he be shipped off to S.H.I.E.L.D. for a Silkwood shower and endless medical tests. And then Tony imagined something even worse: Rhodey not caring, Rhodey being terrified of this child and leaving him.

It was five in the morning and he hadn't touched his own armor or the War Machine, and he hadn't been to sleep yet. He had just been staring at the image of the thing inside of him, a baby, a little boy. He knew he should call S.H.I.E.L.D., or at the least Happy and Pepper. He worried that S.H.I.E.L.D. would make him stay on the Helicarrier so they could watch him like a hawk, maybe even try to keep the kid after he gave birth. Keep the kid forever. Tony dropped his face into his hands and sighed. He and Rhodey had only started dating about eleven hours earlier, and he was already fucking pregnant.

Tony got dressed and got in his car, then headed over to Pepper's house. She would be in the office at seven on most days so he knew she'd be up, probably already dressed and made-up and eating a low calorie breakfast before Happy arrived to drive her to work. He sent her an _I'm on my way_ text before heading out and he got there about fifteen minutes later. Her door was unlocked and he strode in to find her at the kitchen counter leaned over her tablet and eating the hugest bacon and egg biscuit he had ever seen.

“Heya,” she said around a mouthful of food, not even looking up. “Did you two break up already?”

He took a seat at the island behind her and laid out a roll-out computer console, tapping the corner to turn it on. “I'm pregnant.”

Pepper was laughing even before she turned around to face him, her coffee cup poised at her lips. “Must be love,” she said, shaking her head.

Tony waved his hand over the console and a 3-D image of his x-ray appeared. “This is an x-ray I took around one this morning,” he said, and he swiped away his muscle and organs and bones to isolate an image of the fetus. A little tadpole with hands and a tail. “JARVIS says it's five weeks old, too young to determine a gender.”

Pepper sat her cup down and moved closer, her eyes going wide. “But how?”

“I made a wish,” he responded, giving the image a little spin. “ _Zoltar Speaks_. At the carnival in Venice a couple months ago.”

Pepper's brow wrinkled, probably not believing that, but she kept staring in wonder. “I don't get it,” she said. “I mean, you're a guy – how is this...what are you gonna do? You should really call S.H.I.E.L.D. because I just don't -”

“No,” Tony said, perhaps a bit strongly. “They'll take him, they'll try to keep him or something, dissect him or run tests on him.”

“You know it's a boy?”

“That's what I asked for.”

Pepper smiled wistfully at that. “Five weeks,” she said. “So I'm guessing it's Rhodey's then.” Tony just nodded. He's the only one it could be. “When are you gonna tell him?” Not _if_ but _when_.

“We only have today and tomorrow together before we both have to go back to work,” he responded. “Tonight, I guess.”

“So I guess that explains all the puking and how you cried over that cell phone commercial,” Pepper said, her voice teasing, and he waved her off with a grin. “Congratulations,” she continued, and Tony actually felt himself blush.

 

*

 

“Tony, you _have to_ tell S.H.I.E.L.D. We gotta find that machine – it's dangerous for a thing like that to be out amongst civilians. It's probably full of HYDRA tech -”

“I think I should figure out the 'Rhodey' aspect of this _first_ , don't ya think?” Tony said, and Steve nodded reluctantly through the image on his tablet screen. Bruce was loitering behind him, eyes wide as he examined the x-ray that Tony had sent him. (“That's a real fucking _baby_ ,” Bruce had mumbled upon seeing it for the first time.) “I'd like to at least get him on board before they stick me in a padded room and steal my kid, okay?” Tony knew he was scowling but he didn't try to hide it. He was glad he'd made this video call through a secure line. “You know that's how those assholes work. They'll treat us like a science experiment.”

“So you're gonna do it?” Steve asked, eyebrows raised. “You're gonna...you know, have a baby?”

Tony tried to think of something nonchalant and lazy to respond with, but he couldn't help smiling wide. He was glad that Steve couldn't see that he had a hand on his stomach right then and was rubbing his tummy in comforting circles, just imagining. “Looks like it,” he said.

“Looks like what?” Tony heard behind him, and he whipped around to see Rhodey wearing his undersuit and walking into his workshop, ready to get started on modifications to War Machine. He walked over to him and Tony turned back to see Steve and Bruce's faces stretched into shocked grins.

“See ya when you get back, Tony,” Steve said, Bruce waving goodbye over his shoulder, and Steve ended the call before Tony could get a word out.

So Tony just sighed and turned to Rhodey, who stood in skintight clothing before him, and he pushed all of the dirty thoughts out of his head when his stomach bubbled a bit. He couldn't wait for the nausea to pass, but all of the reading he'd done today said that some women experience it through the twentieth week.

“What did Steve want?” Rhodey asked.

“What changed?” Tony responded, ignoring Rhodey's question. “Between us – what made you wanna try? I don't know, I feel like I've been beating my head against a brick wall for years and suddenly you just...”

“I don't know,” Rhodey said simply. “Honestly, I just...you're the exception, you know? That night in New York...I was just...something was in the air, I guess.”

“Yeah?” Tony said, standing, and Rhodey wrapped his arms around Tony's shoulders. _(Yeah. Evil and magic and creepy things that I never even knew existed five years ago. Whatever happened to terrorists just blowing up embassies like in the good old days? Now the bad guys are getting men pregnant.)_

“Yeah,” Rhodey said. “I just...let go. Just went with it. I still don't regret it.”

Tony leaned in and hugged Rhodey tight. _(You would if you knew what was inside of me.)_

 

*

 

Tony and Rhodey spent the next day and a half taking Rhodey's measurements for new War Machine armor (“your chest has gotten _big_ ,” Tony remarked) and replacing the boots of his current rig with all brand-new everything. Tony promised to have a new War Machine for him in a week, and they spent the night before they both had to leave having sex again and again, taking turns with each other, resting and eating and then making love again.

Tony woke up before Rhodey and went to the bathroom down the hall to vomit up his measly dinner, which didn't seem to have digested at all. He was sure he was going about this in the wrong way. He was terrified of telling Rhodey, who hadn't dealt with anything as magical as Tony had since S.H.I.E.L.D. came on the scene when he got back from Afghanistan. Meeting Thor and Captain America had been enough to make Rhodey's head spin, so Tony imagined he'd probably run away screaming at the notion of Tony being pregnant with his child.

Tony stood and brushed his teeth, scowling at his reflection. He realized that if everything worked out, if the child was normal and healthy and not cursed by intergalactic magic, then Tony would have a kid to raise, and he'd probably be doing it on his own. He didn't want to be a single parent. He didn't have anything against nontraditional households at all, but that just wasn't the way he'd ever imagined taking on fatherhood. Alone.

Then again, he could just tell Rhodey and get him on board, then they could do this together.

He headed to the kitchen and started on breakfast, which for him was just throwing bagels in the toaster and grabbing some cream cheese and lox from the fridge. He could hear Rhodey shuffling around upstairs and it made his stomach tremble, but he just blamed it on the smell of the lox. He pushed the envelope of it away from him and leaned forward onto the counter, breathing. Rhodey's footsteps came quickly down the stairs and across the living room, and he entered the kitchen half-dressed and with a stressed smile on his face.

“We overslept,” Rhodey said, “or _I did_ , really. A chopper's gonna land on your helipad in about twenty minutes, okay?” Rhodey went to the toaster and pressed the 'cancel' button, grabbing the barely-toasted bagel before turning to Tony and kissing his cheek. “I keep doing this. I'm sorry.”

“It's okay, really,” Tony said. “Go on, get ready.”

Rhodey dashed back upstairs and Tony stood up straight to make some coffee, and he cursed when he heard helicopter blades chopping through the air outside. He went to the Keurig to make Rhodey a cup, and he could have screamed. This wasn't the type of news that he could tell Rhodey seconds before he had to leave, and it wasn't the kind of thing to be told over the phone or in an email. He could already hear Rhodey coming back down the stairs, undoubtedly hearing the helicopter, too. So Tony put one sugar and three creams in Rhodey's coffee and put it in a lidded travel mug, and he walked through his living room to his patio door, where Rhodey already stood, quietly buttoning his jacket. His eyes were apologetic when he took his drink from Tony and the kiss they shared was just as regretful.

“You know I'll see you soon,” Rhodey said. “Thanks for the coffee.”

“Call me,” Tony said.

“I will.”

“Don't just say you're gonna call me,” Tony said. “ _Call me_. I really need you to call me.” Maybe Tony's hormones were acting up again. He didn't want to say goodbye. He didn't want to be left alone with all this.

Rhodey's forehead wrinkled and he pulled Tony close, pressing them together firmly. “Of course I'll call you,” Rhodey replied softly, his tone suspicious. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, of course,” Tony said, and he prayed it came across as sincere. “Let's meet up in New York sometime. Sooner rather than later.” _(Before I get a huge belly and swollen ankles.)_

“Will do,” Rhodey said, and the patio was flooded with bright lights as the chopper hovered overhead for a moment before slowly descending. Rhodey pressed a kiss onto Tony's lips and stepped away quickly, lest they be seen. “I'll call you.”

Tony watched Rhodey get on the chopper and fly away. The War Machine was still downstairs, due to be shipped back to Edwards once he was finished with his updates. He'd stay in Malibu for a while to complete the construction of a Mark 2 for Rhodey, too. Shouldn't take too long.

He let Rhodey leave without telling him, and he had no idea when he'd see him again. It could be months from now, when Tony's grown as big as a house and can't come up with a clever reason why. What if something went wrong and _that's_ how Rhodey found out – from a picture of Tony on the cover of a tabloid with a Queen alien crawling out of his carcass? In that case he supposed he owed it to Rhodey to get himself checked out, to be sure that this child wasn't going to kill him. To be sure it was a child at all.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony refused to meet the SHIELD doctors on the Helicarrier. He didn't didn't like the idea of being stuck in a place that he couldn't escape from, whether he was allowed to bring his suitcase armor or not. They could disable it, steal it, take it away and make him stay there in the Hulk's cage until whatever was inside of him came tearing it's way out. So they were meeting him at Stark Tower, on his own territory. Bruce agreed to shadow the doctors so that he could learn enough from them to be Tony's general practitioner in their absence – and also to discourage anyone from doing Tony any harm.

According to JARVIS, the kid was seven weeks old now. They took an ultrasound and enhanced it. Looked like a proper crawfish now. Bruce smiled and chuckled quietly at the sight, his hand firm on Tony's shoulder. The SHIELD doctors were amazed, awestruck and silent. He allowed them to take blood samples and run other tests on him, Bruce always nearby, and all results came back normal. Hill had also sent out some agents to confiscate that Zoltar machine but he hadn't heard back on whether or not they'd had any success. He hoped the machine was totally benign, just a hunk of wood and metal that somehow became magical for the minute that Tony interacted with it. He hoped his child wasn't a Chituari parasite or another trick by that awful Loki. He hoped his son was a regular boy that looked a little like him but a lot like Rhodey, and he hoped he'd like Ferris wheels and cotton candy. He wasn't sure why any of this was happening but he wanted it, he'd take it, and he really just wanted his kid to be okay in the end.

Bruce and Steve escorted the party of doctors out at Tony's request. He didn't want anyone getting ideas about having him go to the Helicarrier, and he especially didn't want a bunch of black ops assholes climbing out of the woodwork to kidnap him and steal him away to a lab. The three of them stood on the tower's helipad and waved them all goodbye, and perhaps it hadn't been necessary, but it was what Tony needed.

At dinner they projected the image of Tony's ultrasound onto the living room wall. A crawfish, fifteen feet by fifteen feet. Happy had sent boxes of bubble gum cigars and sparkling apple juice to New York, and Tony enjoyed them with a playful scowl.

“So it's a human baby?” Natasha asked. “They're positive?”

“As positive as we can be at seven weeks,” Tony said. “They took blood draws and didn't find anything weird in me, but it's gonna be a while before they can test the baby's blood itself. But everything looks fine right now. Normal.”

Natasha smiled up at the ultrasound. “How about _that_. Did Rhodey shit a brick when you told him?”

Tony swirled his juice around in his champagne flute and looked away guiltily. He could hear the frown on Natasha's face when she said, “Oh, _Tony_.”

 

Tony sat down that night and began drafting a letter to Rhodey.

 

_Rhodey,_

_I am pregnant with your child. I made a wish on a Zoltar machine on the boardwalk, and then we had sex, and now I'm pregnant. I am seven weeks pregnant today. This is not a joke or a lie. The kid is the size of a tadpole but looks like a crawfish right now. It's kinda gross, can't really see how he's gonna end up looking like either of us but who cares, I'm in. I know you're probably worried that our kid will come out half-lobster or some sort of space monster, but I got a bunch of blood work done today and I think we can relax. I don't know why but I have a feeling that everything will be fine._

_I really want everything to be fine. I was drunk and being silly when I made that wish but I meant it when I said I wanted to have your kid. You are an amazing person. Your entire family is amazing. You don't have any brothers. I like to imagine that your father is in heaven and he's very happy right now because he will be a grandfather and your family name will carry on. All of my family's warmongering has pretty much cemented our name in history, but our boy is gonna be a Rhodes so that your family name continues and continues. We're having a boy, by the way. That's what I asked for so I know in my heart that we are having a boy._

_I keep saying “we” and “us” and “our.” I hope I'm not being presumptuous. I hope that you want this as much as I want it. I want you to do this with me. I do not want to do this alone. I love you very much._

 

_-Tony_

 

He saved the letter and did not send it to Rhodey.

 

* * *

 

Tony and Rhodey didn't see each other for another month.

 

In that month, Tony did not swell up to the size of a house and his ankles did not balloon cartoonishly beneath the weight of his new body. The baby was sitting towards the back of his pelvis, deep in his “womb,” protected and with no need to puff up his belly. The definition in his abs all but went away and now he had a smooth stomach, flat but hard, firming up to protect his fetus. The nausea slowly lessened and was replaced by an enthusiasm for salty American foods – Steve took it upon himself to learn how to make every casserole Tony could think of, and the communal kitchen now had an endless supply of cream of mushroom soup. His emotions were still hot and cold, however, and he was known to burst into tears at the finale of _Tommy Boy_ every now and again. He could also be caught crying and staring at Rhodey's photo occasionally, waving off anyone's concerns or gentle suggestion that he come clean.

They Skyped and Facetimed often. Rhodey was stuck at Edwards AFB working on the re-imaging of the War Machine into Iron Patriot, a name that made Tony laugh out loud and a paint job that made Steve bristle a bit. Tony and Rhodey spoke a few times a week and Tony never mentioned why his face looked a little bit rounder, why he was getting acne suddenly, why he got choked up every single time they said goodbye.

At the beginning of Tony's twelfth week he got an ultrasound. Their baby had hands and feet now, eyes, ears. No lobster parts or blue skin or glowing eyes. The baby looked like a normal three-month old fetus and was as healthy and human as any other fetus. He had a strong heartbeat that made the entire team's eyes water whenever they heard it. Tony had started recording the ultrasounds, keeping them for the day that Rhodey could see them.

“I'm sure he'd like to be here for one of them,” Bruce said, his tone gentle as he put away the ultrasound equipment. “I mean you'll handle this however you see fit, but I can't imagine he'll be happy to know how much he missed out on.”

“Yeah, our little bit isn't a crawfish anymore,” Tony said, still wiping the gel from his stomach. “We have a Skype date tonight.” Bruce just shot him a pointed glance. “I really don't wanna tell him over Skype, you know? Or in a letter or something. It's just so...everything's gonna change after this. This is _life-changing shit_ , Bruce, not the type of thing that should happen anywhere except face to face. It's enough that I'm _literally pregnant_ , but being a parent? Having your first kid in your forties? He didn't ask for any of this, you know – it was _my_ wish, not his, he shouldn't have to...”

Tony knew he was just talking himself out of telling Rhodey. He knew Rhodey, and he knew Rhodey wouldn't leave him to handle this alone. Rhodey was all kinds of honorable and he would not deny this child if he knew it existed.

“Maybe he should come for a visit, then,” Bruce suggested, and Tony nodded, pondering.

 

“Hey, I'll be in New York tomorrow.”

Tony could have spit his water everywhere. He did choke a bit but he tried to play it off, just wiped his mouth and coughed. He sat his tablet up on his chest, keeping his stomach out of view though it looked no different. He couldn't help himself.

“Really?” Tony asked. “What for?”

“To see _you_ ,” Rhodey answered, laughing. “I mean I gotta kiss the Vice President's ass for a couple of hours but after that, I'm all yours for the week.”

Tony loved the sound of that. “Sounds great. Can we go to Coney Island?”

Rhodey laughed heartily. “Whatever you want,” Rhodey said.

 

*

 

“That's cute.”

Tony looked up from his phone to see Rhodey demurely pointing towards two men pushing a stroller on the boardwalk. The child inside was sound asleep, loudness of the carnival be damned. Tony grinned and looked at Rhodey, suspicious. Why would he point out two gay dads to him? Did he know? Was Tony showing already? Could he tell?

“Yeah,” was all Tony said in response.

 

They got back to the tower and Tony did what he knew would keep them from talking – he undressed Rhodey and let Rhodey undress him, and they had sex until they were both just worthless piles of sweat and skin in Tony's bed. Rhodey spooned himself to Tony and pressed his hands flat on his stomach, caressing him there, kissing his neck.

“Your belly's so smooth,” Rhodey commented, and Tony felt himself flush. “You must not be doing your crunches, man.”

“Is it bad?” Tony asked. He tried to make it sound light but he was sure he didn't succeed with that.

“Not at all,” Rhodey said quickly. “Course not, you're perfect.” Tony closed his eyes at that and let go for a moment, with Rhodey caressing his stomach and their secret baby. He thought about what Bruce said, about how much Rhodey was missing, about how upset Rhodey would probably be if he knew what Tony had been hiding from him for three months now. He'd had all these tests run on him and Bruce was giving him regular check-ups as best he could – everything was fine. All signs pointed to this baby being a-okay. Rhodey deserved to know.

“Those two dads were cute,” Tony said, and he felt Rhodey nod. “Did you see the kid? Out like a light, and in the middle of all that noise.”

“Yeah, my sister says you gotta put babies to sleep in noisy environments,” Rhodey said, “or otherwise they'll only be able to sleep in complete silence.”

“I'll remember that,” Tony said, and he winced. Getting too comfortable.

“Why?” Rhodey asked. “Are we expecting?” He chuckled, giving Tony a light jostle.

“Yes,” Tony said, and Rhodey said nothing. Tony turned in Rhodey's embrace to lie on his back with Rhodey leaned over him, his face more puzzled than amused now. “I'm three months pregnant.”

Rhodey paused for only a moment before laughing boisterously and leaning forward to press a warm kiss onto Tony's lips. “Christ, I love you, Tony,” he mumbled there, still smiling. “You're insane.”

Tony wished he could just trail off there, take the fork in the road that led to them going for another tumble and Tony probably crying the whole time and using the L-word entirely too much, but he was already halfway there to telling Rhodey his secret and he couldn't stop now. So Tony kissed Rhodey back, but firmer and with all the purpose he could muster, and that seemed to be enough to get Rhodey to stop giggling. “I love you, too, Rhodey,” Tony said. “And I'm three months pregnant. With your child.”

Rhodey's smile faded slowly as he seemed to realize that Tony wasn't joking. “What do you mean?” he asked. “You're not serious, I mean – you're a guy, we're _both_ guys...”

Tony slid out of Rhodey's embrace to sit up and grab his tablet off of the bedside table, and he pulled up his latest ultrasound. “This is from four days ago,” he said, and projected a 3-D image of the fetus into the air, blown up so that the features were visible. “Twelve weeks. Eyes, hands, feet, ears.”

Rhodey blinked over at him and back up at the image projected before them, then back to Tony. Tony began to reassemble the layers of the image, putting the bones and muscle and organs back in place to show that the ultrasound was of his body, a male body. “I took an x-ray a few months ago to check on sensor placement for my prehensile suit,” Tony explained. “I saw a little blip on it, asked JARVIS and he said I have a fetus gestating in my abdomen.” Rhodey was still looking at the ultrasound as Tony disassembled it again, and he gave a breathless sigh as Tony enlarged the image of the fetus. Their kid. “Remember I said I saw a Zoltar machine in Venice a few months ago? Well I was drunk and missing you something awful when I stuck a quarter in it and asked it to make me the bearer of your firstborn. A boy, specifically.”

“And you really think it worked?”

“Well there's _definitely_ a fetus inside of me, so...”

Rhodey swiped a hand over his face and looked around hopelessly for a moment, his confusion plain. “Okay, okay,” he said, almost like he was speaking to himself. “Alright. We gotta...we gotta call Fury, you know that, right? I mean we gotta get that machine off the streets at the least – it's probably full of alien technology...” and then Rhodey's eyes went wide and he looked at Tony, at his belly, and Tony blanched because he knew what Rhodey was thinking. “Are you sure it's a baby? Are you gonna be okay? We should – no, no, the military shouldn't know because they'll try to slice and dice you -”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. is already on the case,” Tony said. “They're trying to find that machine and they're keeping an eye on me.”

Rhodey nodded, noticeably calming a bit. He reached out to run a hand along Tony's stomach and he nodded again, blinking. “Tony, really, _are_ you okay?” he asked. “You're seeing a doctor, right? It's not like you're built for this kinda thing.”

“Yeah, I've had my blood work and all that stuff done,” Tony said. “It's not an alien or anything, so you can relax. You saw the ultrasound – I've got a healthy twelve-week-old human fetus inside of me. Equal parts Rhodes and Stark.”

“Holy shit,” Rhodey breathed, and Tony was glad to see a smile break into his features. “I mean I just can't – I don't know how this is possible. How I could have...” Rhodey just let out a breath and sank into the bed a bit more. “I got you _pregnant_? This is fucking insane.”

Tony placed a hand on top of Rhodey's, where it rested on his stomach. “Yeah, but it's not so bad.”

“And you've known for how long?”

Tony had to look away then. Rhodey was shocked but his panic was subsiding, and Tony was mentally kicking himself for being so worried about it all in the first place. “I found out at five weeks.”

Rhodey huffed. “Why'd you wait so long to tell me?”

“Because I was worried you'd flip out,” he explained. “I'm a guy with a baby growing in me – I thought you'd wanna ship me off to some secret military installation or accuse me of being an alien. So I thought I'd just get all the poking and prodding out of the way, make sure we just had a normal baby on our hands before dropping this in your lap.”

Rhodey nodded. He seemed to understand. “You want this?” he asked. “I mean you really wanna be a dad? Give birth to a baby?”

“ _Your_ baby, yes,” Tony said, and the smile Rhodey gave was calm, comforted. “That really is the part that makes all of this alright for me. Do you want this, too?” Rhodey's eyes wandered around the room a bit, seemingly overwhelmed. “I know you just found out, but this is a big deal. A kid is a big deal. Everything changes, you know? Life can't be the same for me anymore and I don't want everything to change for you, too, but I don't wanna do this by myself, Rhodey. You didn't ask for this, you never wanted this, and I get that, but I really do need you. This is terrifying.”

Rhodey pulled him close, kissed his temple sweetly. “You said you loved me,” Tony continued, “and I said I loved you, too. My parents fucking hated each other. Mom couldn't stand to be in the same room with Howard, you know?”

“Oh, I remember,” Rhodey chimed in. They never spent the holidays with the Starks again after Thanksgiving in 1985.

“I don't want our kid to be able to talk about us like this when we're gone,” Tony continued. “I always said that if I ever became a dad, my kid would be raised in a happy home with two parents that love their child and are _in love_ with each other.”

Okay so that was a little different from the proclamations that they'd made earlier. It would probably be worth it to differentiate. “Are you in love with me?” Tony asked. “I know I'm framing it up like it's all about the kid, but I'm pretty sure you see through all of that by now.”

Rhodey laughed, thank fucking god. “Of course I'm in love with you,” Rhodey responded. “And honestly, if I had to have a kid with _any_ one – male, female – I could only see that happening with you. I just never thought it would be possible.”

Rhodey sunk down further into the bed, rolling Tony toward him in the process. “I can't believe this, I really just don't understand it at all, but...you got me, okay? I know it's terrifying, and I wouldn't leave you alone in this.” Rhodey looked to Tony then with a smile. “You said it's a boy?”

“I wished for a boy.”

“Then I hope we get our wish.”

Tony grinned and let himself drift off into sleep, but he could tell that Rhodey was still awake even as he drifted off, his large hand drawing circles all around Tony's stomach.


	4. Chapter 4

Tony got an email from Hill the next day letting him know that they'd found the Zoltar machine and were currently scanning it to hell and back, running test after test on it and treating it like it was radioactive until they could be sure that it was safe to approach. He laughed at the thought of S.H.I.E.L.D. scientists in hazmat gear and hovering around the thing when he'd fallen asleep against it only months ago. He told Rhodey and Rhodey suggested that they go to the Helicarrier and run some tests on it themselves, seeing as how Tony's in-house tech was always superior to anything that he sold to the government, but Tony still didn't want to set foot in that place. His doctors were always hinting at “further testing,” suggesting he spend a weekend on the Helicarrier so they could use equipment that they couldn't bring to the tower with them. He always assured them that his lab at the tower was definitely better than the one on the Helicarrier, hoping that would stop them from suggesting it, but they never did. It was possible that they were just fascinated by the pregnant man to whom they were charged with attending, but it still made Tony uncomfortable.

So instead Tony and Rhodey went online and bought baby stuff. Tons of baby stuff. Cribs, changing tables, tiny little dressers for tiny little clothes, non-toxic paint for an as-yet-to-be-determined nursery, giant Dora the Explorer wall decals, anything that caught their eye. Clint breezed by at one point and made a very practical suggestion, and then they began to order cases of organic cotton diapers, bottles, eight different Baby-Bjorns, and they also researched a few high-end pediatricians for later on.

All the shopping was helping him focus on the kid and _not_ on Zoltar or S.H.I.E.L.D., but he couldn't get it out of his mind. Tony believed Rhodey when he said he wanted to be around for this, that he wanted to watch Tony plump and swell up like a balloon. Tony believed that Rhodey loved him, was in love with him, and wanted this kid, too. It was all so left-field, though, when he thought of the years of shrugged-off advances and polite whispers of, “Tony, come _on_ , man.”

It made him so suspicious of that fucking game. It was clear that Zoltar was somehow at fault for Tony's “condition” right now, but could it's interfering be the reason Rhodey had a change of heart? Tony would love to just _not_ believe that but it was almost too obvious to ignore – people just don't turn a corner and start putting their mouths on things that they never would have in the first forty years of their lives.

 

Tony waited until Rhodey was asleep that night to video conference with Asst. Director Hill.

“What have you found?”

“Nothing so far. It's still being scanned for different types of radiation -”

“Did you crack it open yet?”

“No, we wanna be sure -”

“You're gonna have to open it up,” Tony said. “Whatever did this to me is hiding inside of that machine somewhere and I gotta find it.”

“You can take a shot at it if you want,” Hill offered. “You're welcome to come up and run your own tests on it, crack it open if you think that's what it's gonna take.”

Tony paused. He did not want to be stuck on a flying airstrip.

“No one's gonna try to keep you here,” Hill said, making Tony blink. She was quick. “It's fairly obvious at this point that you're not carrying an alien, so there's no reason for you to think that we'd wanna hold you against your will.”

“I'm still an anomaly, Hill,” he said. “I'm still male and pregnant. You're tellin' me you guys wouldn't want to eviscerate me? Keep my kid floating in a jar? Not a long shot when you think about Dr. Banner's cage.”

Hill's eyes narrowed and Tony let out a deep breath. _(Calm down.)_

“No one's gonna take your child away,” Hill said quietly. “No one's gonna cut you open. If anything we're just worried about how you're supposed to give birth. Our doctors haven't seen any sign of a birth canal or any other opening that can be accessed by the fetus. No one wants this child to come tearing out of your stomach or anything.”

Tony nodded. He'd been worried about that, too.

“So are you excited?” Hill asked, and Tony looked up quickly. “You really got hot at the idea of someone taking your kid away. So you must really want this.”

“I do,” Tony said quickly, eagerly, unable to even play it off.

“Who's the father?” Hill asked. Tony felt his face go warm. “Or are we looking at a 'Virgin Mary' situation here?”

Tony was actually relieved by that. That meant that the S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors didn't know about him and Rhodey, and if Hill was asking him then that meant that no one at S.H.I.E.L.D. knew about them. None of them knew _how_ Tony got pregnant beyond the fact of the rogue Zoltar machine. That was good news. Rhodey was safe.

“I can't say,” Tony said, and Hill just nodded once and left it at that.

 

*

 

The next morning Tony decided to forgo breakfast with the team and he called Hill again – still nothing on the Zoltar machine. Tony was in the living room while everyone dined in the kitchen, and he peeked up to see Rhodey chatting with Steve and picking an unreasonable amount of onions out of his omelet. He seemed happy but Tony couldn't shake the idea that it was fake, it was an all an act caused by that stupid machine and it's magic. His bloodwork showed him that he was overproducing both estrogen and testosterone and the mix of these two had his emotions on a hair trigger – once he got a thought in his head, it was hard to ignore it. It was one thing to sob during a Chris Farley film and blame that on hormones, but doubting Rhodey...part of him felt terrible for even thinking it, but he knew it wasn't a longshot. He knew it wasn't implausible.

“Come on,” Tony heard, and he looked up and saw Rhodey. He could smell the onions on him from here. “Come eat – I know you're hungry. There's omelets – really, _really_ oniony omelets.” Rhodey glanced down at the tablet to see Hill at her desk. “Asst. Director Hill.”

“Colonel Rhodes,” she said in acknowledgment. “I didn't know you were in New York.”

“I'll call again later,” Tony said suddenly, and he disconnected the call before anyone else could speak. Rhodey just chuckled and reached out for Tony, taking his hand as he stood.

 

Tony was buttoning his trousers while Rhodey stood back and watched, just grinning. They weren't buttoning. They were too small.

“Well goddamn,” Tony said, and he was sure his ears were smoking as he went to stand in front of the mirror, gazing at his round belly poking out over his unfastened pants, the hook and clasp about an inch too far apart to meet. Rhodey approached behind him and placed his chin on Tony's shoulder. “This is your fault,” Tony told him.

Rhodey laughed heartily and Tony watched in the mirror as Rhodey's hand slid around the curve of his belly. It was getting properly round now. It already looked like he had a beer gut, and soon he'd look like a proper pregnant person. It was almost too much to think about, except when Rhodey was there and touching him, smiling over his shoulder in wonder.

“'Goddamn' is right,” Rhodey said, and he pressed a kiss into the crook of Tony's neck, long and soft. “You look lovely.”

Tony hadn't thought that Rhodey would be interested in sleeping with him once he started to spread out, and he was glad to be proven 100% wrong about that.

 

“You really think I look lovely like this?” Tony asked after they'd caught their breath and cooled down. “I'm only gonna get bigger.” Rhodey was nodding off but grinning, his face all-smiles along Tony's shoulder. Rhodey kissed him there and flung an arm over him, his hand absently caressing Tony's side, sliding over his stomach.

“Yeah, because you're having my son,” Rhodey mumbled, so tired, eyes still closed. “It's remarkable. You don't just look lovely – you _are_ lovely. I don't think you've ever been more lovely to me.”

 

*

 

Tony was in his lab with Bruce and reviewing all of the data from the tests that had been run on that machine, Bruce reading up on the radiation and Tony checking out the physicality of the thing, examining x-rays and even a few MRIs of the contraption to see if he could find anything foreign, anything hidden. The wood and metal of the machine had been carbon-dated to the mid-twenties, but that didn't mean much – whoever built it could have made it in the eighties and used old materials to make it look like an antique.

“There's something in there,” Tony mumbled, slowing the MRI footage to examine it frame-by-frame. “There's gotta be.”

“You think they'd ship it over here to us?” Bruce asked from his computer console. “I'd like to take a look at it myself.”

“I asked but they wanna keep it there,” Tony said. “I'm not getting on the Helicarrier.”

“I understand,” Bruce said. “That place makes me jumpy, too. Never know what those guys are up to.”

Tony rubbed his eyes and sat back. He looked down and frowned – he was wearing sweatpants. Months and months of sweatpants to look forward to. Rhodey didn't seem to mind. He joked that they were much easier to get off than Helmut Lang slacks. _(I don't think you've ever been more lovely to me.)_

“I think that machine made Rhodey gay for me,” Tony said plainly, just putting it out there. He heard Bruce sputter and looked up to see him wiping coffee off of his face, his mug a drippy mess in his hand from where he clearly spilled it at Tony's words. “I think someone put something in that machine that made me pregnant and made my crush want to _get me_ pregnant.”

“Well,” Bruce said, and he cleared his throat before continuing. “Has he ever...been with a man before?”

Tony shrugged. “Dunno,” he said. “I mean I _think_ so, just judging by the fact that he _absolutely_ knows what he's doing in bed, but...I don't know...” Tony thought for a moment. “He told me I was 'the exception,' but that doesn't necessarily mean that he's never fucked a guy before. To be honest, I can't remember the last person he dated. Mighta been a couple people back at MIT...it's been ages.” _(I don't think you've ever been more lovely to me.)_

“Well maybe he's been dating _you_ all this time,” Bruce said, and Tony's face wrinkled. A ridiculous suggestion. “No, seriously. It's not hard to pick up on how into you he is. Maybe you two have been, like, in a stand-off or something and you didn't even know it. Ever had a crush on someone just to find out later that they were totally crushing on you, too? And nobody ever made a move because neither one of you had the nerve.” _(I don't think you've ever been more lovely to me.)_

“Bruce,” Tony said, trying to sound nonchalant. “That's ridiculous, he's not...I mean...”

“I understand your suspicions about the machine,” Bruce said, “but you really shouldn't count him out. I can't claim to know him very well at all, but I think he's into you. I think he means it.” _(I don't think you've ever been more lovely to me.)_

Tony kept hearing that sentence because something about it was nagging at him: it implied that Rhodey had found him lovely in the past, possibly even before all of this.

 

Tony and Bruce weren't getting anywhere in their examination of the data from S.H.I.E.L.D. The MRIs and the x-rays held no secrets that Tony could unearth, and Bruce seemed just as stumped over the radiological readouts. Tony needed to see it for himself. He needed to touch the thing, take it apart in his lab where he could use all of his fancy equipment on it and find what S.H.I.E.L.D. had missed.

“Let's go there then,” Rhodey said, leaning back against a stainless steel tabletop and jostling the hologram displaying behind him. “Come on, I'm only in town for two more days and they're right above LaGuardia airspace right now. If there's anything in that machine, we'll find it.”

“I'd rather not,” Tony said. “Maybe they'll bring it to us, maybe we can – Rhodey, you ask. I have a feeling that Hill and Fury like you way more than they like me, anyway. They'll do it for you.”

“We can just go there -”

“They keep talking about 'further testing',” Tony conceded finally, and Bruce looked up from his work station. “Every time they send the doctors, they try to get me to get on the Helicarrier and I just...I don't trust it. Not after the whole 'cage' thing with Bruce. They're gonna try something, they'll wanna keep me there, or keep _him_...”

“No one's gonna hurt you,” Rhodey said, and Tony could see Bruce nodding behind him. “And no one's taking our kid. Not if I'm there, and not if Bruce is there. I'll have to let the DOD know if I go anyway, so we'll even have backup from the feds.”

“You'll both be there with me?” Tony asked, and both Rhodey and Bruce nodded. “Okay.”

 

*

 

Tony consented to board the Helicarrier and examine the Zoltar game himself. They took a Quinjet for the short trip and Tony's heart was racing as they landed, but he was relieved to see that only Nick Fury and Maria Hill were there to greet them upon their arrival. The three of them exited the jet and approached their hosts, everyone sharing polite nods.

“Congratulations, Mr. Stark,” Fury said, and Tony sneered though Fury seemed to be rather sincere. “Who's the proud father?”

“Where's the machine?” Tony asked.

“It's on the science levels,” Hill piped in. “But there are some specialists in Medical that need to -”

“No doctors,” Rhodey said suddenly, and Tony looked to him quickly. “He's already got an OB/GYN.” Rhodey stabbed a thumb towards Bruce, who just smirked.

“I'm not here to see any doctors, any specialists,” Tony said. “No tests, no nothing. I'm healthy, I'm fine. Just take us to the machine.”

Hill just nodded but Fury seemed a bit taken aback, though he didn't say anything. He extended a hand towards the entrance and then led them inside.

The machine sat in the middle of an empty lab, everything pushed against the walls probably so they could scan it and run diagnostics on it. Tony huffed – everyone expected computers and technology to solve everything nowadays, thought that they could just sit a thing in front of a computer and have all it's mysteries unlocked. Tony had learned to build things by taking them apart first, then putting them back together and learning their systems inside and out. If there was something in that game, he'd find it.

 

Ten hours later, Tony was sitting in the midst of rusty cogwheels, chains, old wood, and a pile of quarters. Rhodey was taking each part and making digital wireforms of each one, then taking MRIs of them and putting them back in the pile Tony had made. Tony was examining each part with his naked eye, occasionally using a magnifying glass but mostly just holding them up to the light and looking at them, checking for anything odd. SHIELD had contacted the manufacturer and acquired the machine's blueprints, and Tony was using those for reference as well. He hadn't found anything so far, nothing that was there when it shouldn't be.

He glanced up to see Bruce dozing at a makeshift table, his laptop's screen black, the machine asleep. Rhodey seemed bleary-eyed as he sat a gear in the portable MRI and turned it on, wobbling a bit in place as it did it's thing. He pulled out his phone to see that it was five in the morning. They hadn't discussed where they'd sleep or anything, hadn't even thought they'd be here so late.

There was nothing to be found. Tony didn't understand. He needed to take all this crap back to the tower or to California so he could continue his examination, use his own equipment.

“Alright fellas,” he said as he stood awkwardly, his stomach small but already interfering with his mobility. “Pack it in. Let's get all this stuff packed up and taken to my place. I'm ready for bed.”

 

*

 

Bruce and Rhodey both disappeared upon their return to the tower but Tony camped out in his lab with Zoltar. He'd put it back together and then taken it apart all over again, and now the machine was in pieces and it's mannequin head sitting on top of the pile, staring wide-eyed at Tony with it's mouth hanging limply open. Now Tony was looking through all of the MRIs Rhodey had taken, as well as the radiological data. He was gonna find whatever made him this way, whatever made his best friend's body betray him.

 

“Come to bed.”

Tony checked the time first (10 a.m.) and then looked up at Rhodey, who was standing in his lab barefoot and dressed only in pajama pants. His eyes were puffy and tired, everything in his posture saying that he must have dragged himself out of bed.

“You've been awake for twenty-four hours,” Rhodey said. “First time you've done that sober in a while.” Rhodey walked over to Tony's desk, taking his hand and giving a pull. “Come on, get up. This can't be good for you.” Rhodey pulled again, but Tony didn't budge. “Tony -”

“I need to know,” Tony said, and Rhodey stopped pulling to meet his eyes. “I need to know what changed, I need to know what made you wanna...” Tony trailed off and turned back to the computer, pointlessly clicking through a couple of screens.

“Me?” Rhodey asked. “Made me wanna what? Nothing made me do anything, I'm not -”

“You're not gay,” Tony said, still focused on the screen. “Straight guys don't fuck other men, and they certainly don't do it so well that I cry my eyes out the entire time. Straight guys don't say they're in love with me. They don't have babies with me.” Tony heard Rhodey huff a bit, and he looked up again to see Rhodey turned away, his eyes blinking and his head shaking. Tony stood and gave Rhodey's hand a pull, bringing them face to face. “You're not gay, right? I feel like I should know this but...I just don't understand. I don't understand why this happened. Why you slept with me that night and why you're still here.”

“I wanted to sleep with you,” Rhodey said, his tone slightly incredulous as if he didn't really understand the question. “I've _wanted_ to sleep with you. Is that so hard to believe?”

“Yes,” Tony replied. “Especially when I've never seen you with a guy and I can't even remember the last person you dated.”

“You know, Bruce shared a very interesting theory with me on the ride back,” Rhodey said lightly. “Something about a stand-off. Where two people want the same thing out of each other but they're both too chickenshit to make a move.”

“Yeah but that's not what we -”

“Yes. It is.”

They stared at each other for a moment, Rhodey's lips quirked in the tiniest of grins.

“But you don't like guys,” Tony said, his tone strained now, quite obviously not understanding. “You don't, you're not -”

“I like _you_ ,” Rhodey said. “Always have.”

“Okay, okay, you 'like' me,” Tony conceded, “but what about...you're really fucking good in bed, okay? I mean...like, _great_ in bed. I can't be the first guy you've topped.”

Rhodey snorted a laugh and looked away, and Tony could feel the heat radiating off of his skin. “No,” he said. “You're not.”

Tony threw his hands in the air. “Then _why_ didn't I already know that?” Tony asked, his voice loud and shocked. “How is that a thing you keep secret for thirty years? I'm your _best friend_ , right? I shoulda known something like that.”

“You _are_ my best friend, yes,” Rhodey replied. “But you're also the biggest loudmouth I ever met. I've been in the military since before I actually enlisted – started AFROTC in high school and went straight to the Air Force Academy as soon as I could. Learned pretty quick not to show my hand on that one.” Tony nodded. Made sense. He'd never been great at keeping secrets. “I never wanted to hide anything from you, Tony, and I'm sorry about that. Once you start protecting yourself against something, it's kinda hard to stop.”

Tony let out a breath and rested a hand on Rhodey's shoulder. He thought about continuing with the guilt tripping but that wasn't a good idea when a friend was deciding to come out to him after thirty years of knowing each other. Tony _was_ a loudmouth. He had always lived his life out loud and in everyone's face, had purposely made his father think Rhodey was dating him back in college just to annoy him. He couldn't count how many male celebrities he'd fucked, only to get dumped once it was clear that Tony would not be relegated to back rooms and shitty hotel meet-ups. He didn't understand being closeted because he'd never been closeted. That had never even been an option for him.

“Don't apologize,” Tony said. “You're right – that's not a thing that a military guy can be particularly public about. I get it, it's okay.”

“That machine didn't do anything to me,” Rhodey said, his tone resolute, his eyes firm on Tony's. “It's reasonable to think that maybe it helped us end the stand-off, but we could also blame whiskey for that. This is real, okay? What I feel for you, it's real, it comes from me and nowhere else. I'm here now, you got me, I love you, and we're gonna be fathers together, okay?”

Tony nodded, blinking. Stupid pregnancy hormones. “Okay.” He kissed Rhodey and held him tight, the bulk of his belly pressed between them. 

 

Tony and Rhodey went to the bedroom where they were supposed to sleep, but they just sat on the bed together and looked at films that Tony had made of the x-rays and ultrasounds, the images ranging from five weeks to three months, blown-up images of a thing that would one day grow to be a full-grown man.

“Unbelievable,” Rhodey whispered as he held one up to the light, and then he looked to Tony with a smile. “When do you think we should tell my mom?”

“Way after the baby's born,” Tony said, “I mean, like, months after. I don't think she needs to know how he came about. Just tell her we adopted him.”

Rhodey just nodded and continued to peer at the films. “Yeah, she'd freak,” he said. “I still gotta tell her we're dating, too.”

“She gonna freak over that?”

“Nah. I think she already thinks we're dating, anyway.”

Tony laughed heartily at that and looked down at the images. The Zoltar machine was still in pieces in his lab. He figured he'd put it back together again and just keep it since he couldn't find anything, and he was surprised by how comforted he was now that he knew that the thing was pretty much benign, just pieces of metal and wood that had somehow become replete with magic for the few minutes that Tony interacted with it. He still had to figure out _that_ part, but he almost didn't feel like bothering with it anymore. Tony was starting to wonder if there had been any evil or aliens in involved in this at all, if it was just magic in the end, if he'd managed to make a wish and actually have it granted. Rhodey had answered his biggest question about this whole thing and now Tony just hoped he'd be able to get rid of his stretch marks once all this was over. He still had concerns, like labor and giving birth and the kid's health after the fact, but Rhodey was pulling him to bed now, spooning up to him and kissing the back of his neck. Tony wanted a regular kid that he could take to carnivals and feed ice cream and be there for when he tastes a lemon for the first time. He didn't want their son to be a lobster or be taken away from them. He knew that S.H.I.E.L.D. had their chance earlier and they didn't take it, so he was probably safe, but still. He just wanted to get his wish.


	5. Chapter 5

Rhodey was due to leave for Edwards in a few hours, so he and Tony decided to teleconference Pepper and Happy back in Malibu to do some brainstorming about the next few months. Tony would eventually need to spend his pregnancy somewhere private and isolated, _completely_ out of the public eye – a necessity driven home by the fact that he was finally starting to show. Also there was the fact that even though there was plenty of legislation in the works to repeal Don't Ask, Don't Tell right now, Rhodey just would not be able to spare the time off that he wanted to. He wouldn't be able to be around much, and he didn't seem very keen on missing this.

“It's obvious to me,” Pepper said from somewhere off-camera while Happy cleaned a gun at her desk, “that Tony just needs to come back to California. Your house is super-isolated and well secured, so no one's gonna see you on the property. You'll be able to go outside and everything. And Malibu's – what, like three hours from Edwards? Half an hour in the suit, right? That's easier than stealing away to New York all the time.”

“Lab's better here,” Happy piped in, his eyes still focused on his task. Pepper drifted into the frame then, arms folded and head nodding.

“Yeah,” Tony said. “Better equipment for me to figure out this whole 'birth' thing.” Happy and Pepper both glanced up with a flash of concern on their faces, but still they mumbled and nodded in agreement. “Gonna get bored, though.”

“Highly doubtful, pregnant guy,” Rhodey said, and Tony nudged him. “That house is like a playground and besides, you know your friends will be glad to come and visit you out there anyway. And I'll be there. Come on, California's nice.”

 

Rhodey flew out a while later and Tony went inside to start gathering the essentials with the help of the team. Steve and Clint managed the heavy lifting while Tony and Bruce packed up his lab, putting information on flash drives and rounding up tablets, projectors, roll-out consoles, and likewise to be packed by Natasha, who was doing a brilliant job of keeping everything organized. She was also kind enough to rifle through Tony's wardrobe and locate every pair of sweats and drawstring pants that he owned, and she shoved all of his tailored threads toward the back of his closet. Tony assumed he wouldn't be wearing any suits for a while.

He wasn't due to leave for California for another day or two so he went back to his lab and reconstructed Zoltar for the last time. It took hours – he examined each nut, bolt, gear, plank, and part by eye, made sure they matched their specifications on the blueprints, and examined each part's x-ray or MRI before putting them in place. He told himself to relax, to trust, but he needed to be sure. He needed to check this thing out just one more time. And he found nothing.

Tony pulled out a quarter and slipped it into the machine. It came alive and he spun the ramp into position. It told him to make a wish and he did: he wished that he'd get a phone call from Rhodey in exactly fifty seconds. He checked his watch and waited for the machine, and when it told him to release his quarter he did, and it landed right in Zoltar's mouth. It spit out a card at him and he immediately dropped it into the trash. He checked his watch again – twenty seconds left – and held onto his phone. When time was up, his phone did not ring.

So he pulled out another quarter and made another wish: that JARVIS would speak, for any reason. He landed his quarter perfectly again and he trashed the card again. JARVIS never said a word.

In the end he had a perfectly functional vintage carnival game, a rather boring game where the only object was to land a quarter in a mannequin's mouth. If the player succeeded, they got a slip of paper that simply read _your wish has been granted_. It was made of metal and wood and the cards were made of mulch and water. There was nothing foreign or unearthly to be found. It was originally manufactured by a company out of Saskatoon. S.H.I.E.L.D. had done a full investigation of the company and it's employees, the designer of the game – they interviewed everyone, a couple of them even under the influence of sodium thiopental, and they still got no pertinent information. It was just a hunk of matter, dead, empty, lifeless.

Tony decided it would stay in the kid's playroom in New York, then. Whatever that machine did, it did it only for Tony and only on that night. _(I must have really meant it, then.)_

 

Tony went back to his room and opened his newly organized closet, thanking Natasha silently while he threw clothes on the bed for packing. All drawstrings, all t-shirts and sweaters and workout clothes. Big stuff to conceal his steadily growing physique. He fished through and found a pair of dress slacks that Natasha must have missed, and that was a surprise – she was the most thorough person he'd ever met, even with tasks as mundane as peeling eggs or tying her shoes. He went to move them to the back of the closet and something fell out of the pocket – a card, specifically a card from Zoltar. He held up the pants and realized that he must have been wearing them on that fateful night in Malibu, and he remembered forgetting about that card after Happy handed it to him. He leaned over and picked it up – _your wish has been granted_. He looked to the trash can and thought better of it, then tucked the card into his wallet.

 

* * *

 

Steve hadn't been to California since his days touring with the USO, and Tony quietly admired the way Steve marveled at the hot sun and endless ocean as he moved boxes into Tony's cliffside mansion. “Nice digs,” Clint said as he brought in a box of his own. “Only ever seen it from the outside.”

Tony was about to respond when he remembered that he owned miles of property surrounding his house, and he scowled at the realization that Clint had probably once stalked his house on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D., probably back when Natasha was playing the part of Natalie The Horny PA just so she could break into the place.

Tony shrugged off the irritating thought and just directed Clint down the stairs and to his lab, where Bruce was waiting to unpack and set up all the stuff from his lab in New York. Happy was there, too, milling about with everyone and coordinating Tony's move-in for him. Tony could get used to this “pregnant” thing. No one expected him to lift a finger. He figured it was more than the fact that he was pregnant, but also the fact that he was a pregnant _man_ , and everyone agreed that he should take it as easy as possible. They just didn't know how all of this would work out in the end. His doctor's appointments with Bruce were often super quick because there still wasn't a lot that they could do yet – they could do ultrasounds and listen to the child's heartbeat, check Tony out and make sure he was in tip-top shape. They'd done all the prenatal testing they could on the baby and they knew by now that he didn't have Down's Syndrome or spina bifida, and he was growing normally. He still hadn't presented a gender but Tony already knew it was a boy. It had to be.

So Tony went up to his bedroom where Pepper was lining up all of his luggage in front of the closet. “You can unpack these yourself,” she said, huffing slightly from the weight of them. “You're knocked up, not incapacitated.”

Tony just chuckled and approached his bags while Pepper took a seat in a nearby chair. She only stayed seated for a second before noticing the bar and hopping right back up to pour herself a drink.

“Not fair,” Tony groaned, unzipping his suitcases, but Pepper just laughed and continued on.

“I'll only have one,” she offered, but Tony still gritted his teeth at her satisfied sigh when she knocked the entirety of her drink back in one gulp. “See? All done.”

“Meanie,” Tony said, and Pepper laughed again.

“Oh, but you should be happy,” she insisted. “You're gonna be a dad soon. I think that's worth a few months of not drinking.”

“It is,” Tony said, still hanging clothes up. “It's just that when you're a guy and you imagine yourself having kids, it's always from the outside looking in. You know – you're sitting there during the ultrasound, showing off the printouts from it, you're touching her belly or something, but you're not, like, _super_ involved. You're not making sacrifices – I mean if you're pregnant then you can't drink, can't smoke, you get to where you can't eat certain stuff, you can't travel as much, and once your third trimester hits, even standing up and lying down start to suck sometimes. I asked for this and clearly I want it, but...”

Tony sighed. He figured he sounded selfish and he resented himself a little bit for it. “I'm not complaining,” he continued quickly, “I swear I'm not. I just...and after he's born I just can't imagine how we'll...it's all so complicated by the fact that I'm a guy. 'Tony Stark adopted a baby. Where'd he come from? Where's his birth certificate? Why does he look so much like War Machine?' And I'm worried about Rhodey, too. I don't want him to suffer.”

“How would he suffer?”

“He can't be here,” Tony explained as he pretended to perfect the creases in a pair of pants that he was hanging up. “If I were a woman he could be here, even if we weren't married. As long as he wasn't deployed he could...and...I don't know, I'm just really kinda hating the fact that he's in the military right now. Why can't he just come work for SI, ya know? We've been offering domestic partner benefits since '95.”

Pepper approached him and Tony turned to see a sad grin on her face, and he smiled guiltily. “Sorry to dump all of that on you,” Tony said. “When you stand back and look at it, this whole thing kinda just sucks, but...” Tony laughed bitterly. “I just keep thinking 'relax, it's gonna be okay. He loves you, he's happy, baby's gonna be fine, just relax.'” Tony shook his head and walked over to the bed, leaving Pepper standing by the closet. “Sometimes it works.”

“What can I do to help?” she asked, her smile comforting and warm.

“Listening is good,” Tony responded, and Pepper's smile widened with triumph. “That helps.”

 

*

 

Bruce and Steve stuck around as the weeks passed, helping with painting and building cribs and mobiles and walkers and strollers. Pepper bought Tony a proper British pram covered in purple lace and ruffles, a gauche and purposely tacky thing that he determined would be a perfect place to keep extra diapers back in the far, _far_ corner of the nursery. Bruce put together a stellar makeshift examination room in the corner of Tony's lab and Steve took to painting Dora and Diego and Cookie Monster and Bert and Ernie on the walls of the nursery.

Tony was able to show them around, taking full advantage of not yet being visibly pregnant. He was glad it was autumn and still quite warm in southern California, and big t-shirts and board shorts hid his blossoming figure well. He was able to go to the beach with them (never getting in the water) and out to eat, and Tony was always sure to take Steve and Bruce to high-profile restaurants and bars. They were photographed by paparazzi, Iron Man and War Machine and their two friends (lucky ducks still had secret identities), and Tony was glad for that. He saw it as his opportunity to throw the media a few bones before he'd have to go into hiding.

One night they had dinner at Chateau Marmont before heading to the bar, a place known for being a celebrity hotspot and a paparazzi magnet. Tony saw plenty of old friends and old flames, C-listers who tried to get close to him whenever he was in town. Rhodey stood with Bruce at the bar while Tony let some Victoria's Secret model sit in his lap, her nails scratching at his shoulder while he attempted to chat with Steve.

“So are all California girls as tall as you?” Steve asked the woman, who giggled and gave a warm smile.

“I'm from Estonia,” she responded, and even though Steve reddened deeply he still returned the smile. “Be right back.” She stood slowly and gracefully, her movements quite deliberate as she bent down and kissed Tony's temple languidly. Tony shook her off but tried to make it look like a nod, and she offered Steve a playful wink before slinking away towards the bar.

“You're a popular guy,” Steve said, eyes following the woman walking away. “Is this what it's like for you when you're here?”

Tony shrugged a bit. “For the most part,” he replied. “I like to go out, yeah. Well, not so much as of late” - and Tony quickly winked at Steve's grin - “but yeah. I would definitely describe myself as social.”

Steve was glancing around at the women and men milling about, plenty of whom were patting Tony's shoulder as they walked by, some caressing his hair and kissing his cheek and winking and slipping him numbers. “I think you might have misunderstood what I meant when I called you popular,” Steve said.

Tony chuckled at that – Steve made a joke, and a pretty good one. “Yeah, I had my fun,” Tony admitted, “but don't believe most of the shit you hear about me. All you gotta do is claim to have fucked a famous person and suddenly you've got a book deal.”

“Gonna miss it?”

Tony opened his mouth to respond when a boy, tall and ethnically ambiguous and sporting a shredded mesh shirt, leaned over and kissed Tony square on the lips. “You're welcome,” the kid said, laying on all the Hollywood smarm and glamour that he could manage.

Tony jumped and backed away, jerking his head away from the guy's touch. “I don't even know you,” Tony said quickly, but the boy just winked.

“Yes you do,” he said, already trailing away even though Steve was standing now, clearly ready to defend Tony's “honor” or whatever the hell that meant. Steve spared an apologetic glance as he sat back down, and Tony was shaking his head. He _did_ know that kid. He was a go-go dancer and they had fucked ages ago. Tony always wondered why everyone in L.A. thought they were so fucking memorable.

He and Steve were still staring in surprise at each other when the model returned with three beers, handing one to Steve and then easing into Tony's lap while offering him the other. He took it with a smile and immediately sat it down on the table in front of him, not even taking a sip. Steve was talking to Miss Estonia again and Tony was looking around, suddenly wondering where Bruce and Rhodey were. This chick was wearing strong perfume and it was making his head a little swimmy, a feeling that filtered down into his belly and made it rumble. It wasn't horribly loud but there were lots of people, tons of people who claimed to know Tony or to have partied with him or gone to college with him or fucked him.

“Go hang out with Captain America, doll,” Tony said, standing up and letting the model slide off of his lap. He looked to Steve then, whose face was reddening all over again. “You seen Rhodey?”

Steve pointed and Tony spotted Rhodey standing right outside of the garden doors, holding a beer and still chatting with Bruce – but his jaw was tight and his fingers seemed to be digging into the beer bottle, and every now and then he'd cast a glance in Tony's direction, his eyes hard but reluctant. Tony headed over and it was as if Bruce took that as his cue to leave because he walked back in and towards Steve, who seemed to be actually getting somewhere with the Estonian lingerie model.

“Hey,” Tony said, and Rhodey gave a cool nod before swigging his beer. “Having fun? We haven't been here in a while, have we?”

“True,” Rhodey said. “And I can see that you were missed.” Rhodey grinned but Tony could see that it was sharp and not entirely kind. Tony sneered hopelessly and began moving away from the doors, gesturing to Rhodey to join him. “Come on, let's walk.”

They strolled around the edges of the scene at the patio, which was still crowded but quieter – it was the place people went to for quiet conversations. Still they didn't get close to the crowd and hung back near the bushes and the trees, their voices too low for anyone else to hear.

“I know why you're pissed, Rhodey -”

“I'm not pissed.”

“Yes you are. You saw that guy kiss me and you saw that woman in my lap.” Rhodey gusted a coarse sigh but didn't respond, unable to deny it. “For the record, neither of those things happened with my permission, okay? I thought Steve was gonna deck that guy for a minute there.”

“I know, I get it,” Rhodey said back. “That's why I don't like coming to places like this with you. I mean it's not _you_ but everyone else. You've got this reputation and people like to just...help themselves, I guess.”

“I don't like it any more than you do,” Tony said, “but I'm gonna disappear from public life in a week. And I'm gonna be gone for months, even after we...after the package arrives.” Rhodey smirked, getting it. “It's probably good for me to be seen out like this at least once before that happens. Less questions.”

Rhodey nodded and Tony stopped walking, making both of them stop. They were way in the back of the garden now, the voices from the patio coming across soft as windchimes from where they stood. “I'm really looking forward to it,” Tony continued. “Not doing this anymore. Having a perfect excuse to never let a stranger sit on my lap again.”

“Yeah, it's all gonna change,” Rhodey mumbled. Tony felt Rhodey's hand brushing his, then a finger hooking demurely onto one of his own in the shadows of the trees. “Good changes, though.”

Rhodey was smiling now and Tony felt light, and he glanced around before stepping closer. Rhodey huffed a bit but he was still smiling, his own eyes also scanning the lawn, and sure enough, no one was looking at them. So they came together and kissed, sweet and not too slow but definitely not long, and Rhodey threw an arm around Tony's shoulders quickly once they were done. Tony stayed close for a moment, his face brushing Rhodey's shirt. He wanted to leave but it was still kind of early, only about half past ten, but then the smell of a cigarette wafted over and his stomach clenched, the scent mixing with the remnant of the model's perfume and making him gag.

“You okay?” Rhodey asked, but Tony was already leaning over and wretching into the bushes, puking up the best tuna noodle casserole that Steve had made so far. Tony could hear people whooping and cheering nearby, someone even saying “oh shit, looks like Stark got started early tonight!”

 

“Tony Stark Leaves Chateau Stumbling Drunk with War Machine.”

Tony laughed from the bed, glancing over at Rhodey, who sat in a chair near the window. He had his tablet and he was reading a headline from TMZ, the “article” posted only ten minutes after they'd left the bar. They'd had to walk through a throng of photographers to get to the car, and with Tony woozy from vomiting and people all around mumbling about the scene on the patio, it would be a natural deduction that he was shitfaced and puking.

“It's a good thing, trust me,” Tony said. “If they think I'm drunk then they _won't_ think 'oh it's just nausea gravidarum, should be over by the twentieth week.'” They both laughed and Tony pushed at the pillow behind him, making himself sit up a bit straighter.

“The press feels bad for me,” Rhodey mumbled, still reading. “They're all 'oh poor Rhodes, having to drag around that awful Tony Stark.' It's ridiculous.”

“We kinda need to perpetuate the lie, though -”

“I know, I know.” Rhodey shook his head. “I don't like people saying rude shit about you, calling you too drunk to stand up when you're just pregnant and sensitive to smells.”

“I'd much rather they think I'm wasted,” Tony said.

 

*

 

Turned out that Steve actually managed to make a date with that model. She was going to sit for a portrait.

“What?” Tony asked, his knife paused on the biscuit he was buttering. “She's gonna _sit_ for you? What does that mean? Is that like -”

“I'm gonna draw her,” Steve said rather seriously, as if Tony truly needed clarification. “I was thinking pastels. I wanna take a break from pencils.”

Rhodey and Bruce were trying to make it look like they were collaberating on the crossword puzzle when they were really just laughing into their coffee.

“Rogers,” Tony said woefully, “if I weren't pregnant, I'd step in there and show you how it's done.”

Rhodey laughed brightly but Steve still sat there with a furrowed brow. “What are you -”

“You have _no_ game,” Tony blurted out. “None! That chick was trying to get some and you're gonna 'draw her'?”

Steve blinked a little. “I'm not sure what you mean about a 'game,' but I'm not trying to go to bed with her, if that's what you're getting at.”

“And why wouldn't you wanna go to bed with her?”

“I'm already seeing someone.”

Rhodey was snickering down at the newspaper but Bruce was blinking into his coffee, his face red. Tony looked to Steve again to see him smiling across the table at Bruce. Tony balled up his napkin and dropped it onto the tabletop.

“I have terrible gaydar,” he said quietly. “First Rhodey, and now you two.”

 

*

 

Tony and Rhodey leaned closer to the screen, though neither really knew what to look for. Bruce was moving the sensor around Tony's stomach, peering at their child and trying to get a look at the gender. Tony already knew. He just wanted to be sure.

“Ah,” Bruce said, his grin spreading, “you're having a boy.”

Rhodey clapped triumphantly, and Tony said, “Of course we are.”

 

* * *

 

Steve and Bruce went home a few days later, and Steve let Tony keep the pastel portrait of the Estonian model. She was fully clothed and looking over one shoulder, the colors all just different shades of red and gold. _(I see what you did there.)_ Tony loved it. It would go in the kid's playroom.

 

Tony managed to still be able to go out a fair amount until his twentieth week came around, and at five months, it couldn't be denied: Tony Stark was pregnant. He stood in his boxers in front of the mirror and stared at his profile – his legs were normal and his upper body was fine but his midsection was shaped like a teardrop, his stomach poking out round and fullest towards the bottom. His back bent in a slight arch that he knew would become more pronounced the heavier he got. The waistband of his boxers sat below his belly now, which was too big for any of his underwear to accommodate anymore. Tony took a picture and sent it to Rhodey, off in Edwards for the next few days, with the caption _I'm fat now and it's your fault. Buy me clothes_.

Tony ignored Happy's adoring “awww” when he walked into the kitchen – Tony's belly was out, hanging over the waistband of his linen pants with his t-shirt a little too short to cover it up.

“Lookin' good, Boss,” Happy said, newspaper in hand as he sat at the island, and Tony shook his head while he prepared a cup of (decaffeinated) coffee. “I mean it, you're – it's neat, you know? Something I never thought I'd see.”

“A pregnant guy?”

“Tony Stark becoming a father.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Still, Tony grinned.

 

He sent Happy out with a list – a heating pad for his back, soft slippers for walking around the house, and several ingredients for trashy American casseroles. He couldn't wait for Steve to get back. That kid had a real knack for cooking. Tony got a text from Rhodey telling him to check his email, where Tony found a receipt for several pairs of breezy, comfortable pants and roomy shirts, all ordered moments earlier and due to be shipped to Rhodey's house in Mojave in the coming days. He texted his thanks and went down to his lab to continue work on the many suits he'd abandoned once all this started. He wasn't sure if he could return to being Iron Man after the child was born, but he hoped so. With that in mind, should he even continue work on his suits? What if his body didn't bounce back from childbirth? What if the prehensile suit pinched his hypothetical muffin top whenever it hugged itself to his body?

Hope. Tony just hoped. Hope was treating him well as of late. It was always comforting.

 

*

 

Two days later he got a call from Rhodey telling him to sneak into Mojave and get his new clothes. Happy drove him there in a blacked-out Mercedes SUV and they arrived at Rhodey's small off-base house not long after six o'clock. They parked in the garage and lowered the door, and Rhodey sighed at the sight of Tony turning awkwardly in the passenger seat before sliding off of it and letting his feet hit the ground.

“I shoulda helped you out of there, I know,” Rhodey said, his eyes glued on Tony's stomach, “but I can't help staring at you.” Tony blushed and tried to wave Rhodey off, but he wouldn't relent. “No, come on – you look amazing, you're gorgeous like this.” They leaned together and shared a kiss, ignoring Happy's fawning and cooing. Tony knew it would get old eventually, being fawned over and told how awesome he looked all fat and pregnant, but right now...

“I'll bring him back in the morning,” Rhodey told Happy.

 

They went inside and to Rhodey's room, where boxes of clothes waited for him. Rhodey had chosen wisely – all linen and muslin, all drawstring or elastic waistbands, all neutral colors that wouldn't make Tony feel any more feminine than he already did. The shirts were big and shapeless with long sleeves and no designs on them, no flowers or “coming soon!” screenprinted onto them. Tony removed his shirt and caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror, and he groaned and turned away. Ordinarily if he was going to meet up with his paramour he could just assume that he was gonna be getting laid, but when he looked like this he figured it was more of a longshot. Not to mention that his body was in such a shape now that Rhodey couldn't throw him all around like he was used to, the way that both of them liked it.

“What's that face about?” Rhodey asked from the bed, where he was removing his shoes. “If it's something like 'oh I'm so fat, I look awful, Rhodey doesn't wanna fuck me,' then I'm telling you right now that you're full of shit.”

Tony hitched a brow. “So you _do_ wanna have sex right now?”

Tony already knew that the mechanics would be complicated. He couldn't be bent over comfortably and he couldn't get on top of Rhodey, but he _loved_ their compromise: Tony lay on his side with Rhodey spooned right up against him and kissing his neck as his fingers worked lube into Tony, and he rested his hand on Tony's stomach as he slid forward, easing inside of him slowly but steadily, not stopping until their bodies were flush together. Rhodey's hand rubbed there as he found his rhythm, and Tony turned his head to kiss him. Tony's stomach fluttered and he gasped, arching back as best he could into Rhodey's hips as their pace quickened. They hadn't had sex in a while, a month at least, as Tony's nausea had often made him dizzy and just not particularly sexy-feeling. Tony felt like his nerves were on fire from the lack of contact and he reached back and caressed Rhodey's face, gasping when he felt Rhodey's hand circling his swollen belly. He thought that he'd be creeped out at first by having sex while he was plump with his pregnancy, but he wasn't, and he wasn't disappointed by the fact that they weren't twisting and pulling each other all over the bed. He was with his family now, the safest he could be, and he was beautiful and wanted, and he felt as perfect as the first time Rhodey was inside of him.

 

An hour later, they were finished with each other and back to the task at hand. Tony stood back from the mirror and looked at himself in his new threads. He thought he looked like a hippie but everything was comfortable, not too tight or too small. He turned to face Rhodey and held out his arms, presenting himself. “Not bad,” Tony said.

“Not at all,” Rhodey replied from where he sat on the bed. “You should dress like that all the time. You look like a yoga instructor.”

“I can do those 'mama and baby' classes,” Tony said, walking over, and Rhodey took his hand in some kind of an attempt to help him sit down. “Maybe after he's here.”

“I'd ask if you wanna go out to dinner,” Rhodey said, and Tony just chuckled. “There's a Carl's Jr. nearby. Let's go.” Tony gave Rhodey a knowing look, and Rhodey just shook his head. “We'll take my truck. It's got black-out tint, just sit in the back.”

And that's exactly what they did. Tony stomach was rumbling a bit by the time they got to the drive-through window and he ordered a Double Super Bacon Cheeseburger and a Sprite. Rhodey passed him his food to the back seat and sped off, and halfway through his burger Tony realized that they weren't heading back towards Rhodey's house but out into the desert, towards Red Rock.

“Where are we going?” Tony asked around a mouthful of bacon and onions.

“For a ride,” Rhodey said, and he slowed the car to a stop on the side of the road. “Get up front.”

He hopped out and helped Tony move from the back seat to the front, and they continued driving down Midland Trail as the sun set and the sky went from blue to pink to purple around them. The mountains were short so the sky was big and beautiful as it slipped by overhead, and they held hands and didn't say much as they drove. They took a left turn at some point and headed down a small dirt road, out into the bleak wilderness of the Mojave Desert, the vegetation always sparse and dying now that it was the fall. Tony hadn't been out of the house in a while and he was sick of it already, so this was nice. He hadn't been in the desert in ages. He'd forgotten how beautiful it could be.

At some point Rhodey stopped the truck and they got out in the midst of rocks and sand, just walking out into the bare expanse together and looking at the big nothing. The moon was out and lit everything up around them, doused the night in a deep blue.

“What are we gonna name him?” Rhodey asked.

Tony hesitated. “I actually haven't thought about it.”

Rhodey seemed surprised. “Really? You've got nothing in mind?”

“Jarvis was always a good chap. He should have a kid named after him. Your dad, too.”

“Rupert?” Rhodey mumbled, his brow knitting harshly.

Tony shrugged. “I know what his last name is gonna be.” Rhodey's brow wrinkled and Tony huffed. “Rhodes, _duh_. I mean we can hyphenate it if you want, but he's gotta be a Rhodes.” Tony thought of the letter he'd written Rhodey months ago, when he was still only seven weeks pregnant. He'd never shown it to Rhodey. “You're amazing, okay? You're amazing, your mom's amazing, and I'm sure your dad was fucking out-of-this-world amazing. Our son's gonna be a Rhodes. Your name's gotta carry on, it has to.”

“But you're the last Stark.”

Tony shrugged again. “Big deal,” he replied. “We've got a century of war and murder to help the world remember the Stark name. I want him to be a Rhodes.”

Rhodey draped an arm around Tony's shoulders with a nod. “Stark-Rhodes.”

“Whatever.”

Tony's stomach rumbled again and he pressed a hand there instinctively. It wasn't gas and he didn't have to vomit. He felt another little tremor and then he felt it on the outside, too, and he gasped. He turned to Rhodey, whose face was already looking concerned.

“He's moving,” Tony said. “I can feel him moving.”

Tony took Rhodey's hand and pressed it to his stomach, chasing the sensation around until Rhodey's smile disappeared and his eyes went wide. He felt it, too. They kissed and Tony looked back up at the sky, the moon so bright that it was drowning out the light of the surrounding stars, and Rhodey kept staring at his stomach, kept moving his hand bit by bit to feel their son kicking him.

“Why hello there, Mr. Rhodes,” Rhodey whispered.


	6. Chapter 6

“Alright, this is officially the last straw.”

Tony didn't respond, just swung his legs off of the futon and onto the floor of the lab before sitting up slowly, wincing as his back popped and cracked. That futon was hell on his back and Happy knew it, not to mention that he'd promised not to sleep in the lab anymore. Tony was halfway through his sixth month and his body was heavy and still growing. Happy was storming around the lab and picking up dirty plates, cursing under his breath the whole time.

“That's it,” Happy said. “I'm getting rid of that futon and I'm calling Colonel Dreamy.”

“Hap, come _on_ , don't worry him with this shit.” Tony stood and fought off a wince – his legs were cramping a little. The baby was awake, too, moving around, and Tony rested a hand on his stomach. “Chill out, squirt. Breakfast is coming.” He walked around to where Happy was shuffling papers around on a table to retrieve forks and spoons. “Hey, cut it out. I fell asleep at like midnight, okay? I'm plenty rested and the kid doesn't seem upset – he's hungry, actually.”

“ _You're_ hungry.”

“Yeah. Therefore _he's_ hungry.” Happy rolled his eyes and looked away. Tony had been spending most evenings looking over all of the medical imaging of his body, trying to figure out how he was supposed to give birth. The bigger he got, the more he worried about it. “Come on, let's get brunch from that steak-and-chips place. Get milkshakes, too – Bruce says I need more calcium, so...”

Happy stood there scowling for a moment. “You're not getting a milkshake,” he said, and he kept speaking over Tony's protests. “I'm not trying to boss you around – ever heard of gestational diabetes? I'm pretty sure that having a dick won't protect you from that.” Tony finally gave up and laughed, and so did Happy. “If I catch you sleeping down here again I'm calling the Colonel. No exceptions.”

 

Happy went out to pick up brunch and Tony wandered around the main floor of his house. He'd spent the past six weeks indoors except for the occasional sleepover in Mojave with Rhodey, where they'd go out to the desert to be alone with each other and their son, to talk to him and touch Tony's belly so that they could feel him move. They'd bring blankets and heavy down jackets and sit in the bed of Rhodey's truck together, their fingers threaded on top of Tony's stomach while they told their boy all about MIT and why it really was his best option for college. They still had not determined a name for him.

Tony wandered the hallways and imagined toys and clothes and crayon drawings all over the place, his home colorful with baby detritus. He imagined himself not there, killed during childbirth. He shook the thought out of his head and felt guilty for it. Their son was growing normally and had no detectable abnormalities that would put either of their lives at risk. Tony's body had created an amniotic sac and a placenta and an umbilical cord. His body had built a womb around his baby and was giving it everything it needed to survive, so why should he think that it wouldn't be able to accodomate childbirth? Tony knew he should just trust, but he couldn't just yet.

 

* * *

 

“Stark.”

Tony was at his piano when he heard a familiar voice booming across his living room. He looked up and Thor was standing at his door in civilian clothes and no travel bags, his presence completely unannounced.

“Hey!” Tony stood and walked over, arms spread, and Thor gave him a knowing once-over before taking him in a warm hug. “When did you get back to our end of the universe?”

“I am here to visit Dr. Foster,” he said. “She is a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology for the next half-year. I payed my respects to our friends in New York only to find out that you are in the family way.” Thor looked him over again, beaming. “I am happy for you, my friend.”

“Thank you.”

“And is there a father to this child?”

Tony couldn't believe how excited he was for this moment, right here right now: he was about to tell the truth about who sired his child for the first time since he'd denied it to Maria Hill. “Rhodey.”

Thor nodded curtly, like it wasn't surprising at all. Like nothing about this surprised him. “May I?” Thor asked, a big hand hovering over Tony's stomach, and Tony nodded his permission. Thor's hand slid across the top of his stomach and then around the bottom of it, his smile spreading even further. “Ah. He will be a strong boy.”

“Did they tell you already?”

“Tell me what?”

Tony blinked. “Okay, I have _a million_ questions for you.”

 

*

 

Thor was just grinning at Tony across the kitchen table now and starting on his second ham and pineapple pizza while Tony rattled on and on, questions falling out of his mouth at a mile a minute. Tony's pasta carbonara was cold in front of him, ignored.

“How did I get pregnant? Men can't get pregnant – not _here_ , at least. There was a carnival game but I just can't believe it did this to me. I can't – I mean how am I supposed to give birth? Does this happen where you're from? Do men get pregnant on Asgard? I've only got like ten weeks left before the baby's ready for 'expulsion' as JARVIS puts it, so I kinda need to figure this shit out.”

“The men where I'm from are not known to carry children, no,” Thor said, “but it's not unheard of.” Thor shrugged and picked up another slice. “Loki himself has given birth in the past – to creatures, not men.”

“What about babies?” Tony asked. “Have any men _ever_ carried a baby where you're from?”

“Not that I know of. Still, it would not be treated as unusual if it were to happen.”

“This isn't Asgard,” Tony moaned, unable to hide his frustration for a moment. “On Midgard – on _Earth_ men do not have babies. Okay? It just _does not_ happen. So how did this happen to _me_? If anybody's got any insight it's probably God, or _a god_ in this case.”

Thor stayed quiet for a moment, chewing his pizza thoughtfully. “Tell me how this came to be.”

“Simply put,” Tony began, “I have always had a wildly inappropriate crush on Rhodey, okay? So I'm drunk at this carnival one night and I go up to this machine and make a wish. I wished that I could have Rhodey's son. And then I forgot about it and we had sex and started dating and like five weeks in, I find out I'm pregnant. That's it.”

Thor just nodded with a chuckle. “So your wish was granted, then.”

“Yeah, but it _can't_ be that simple.”

“Why not?”

Tony sighed. Perhaps it was a bad idea to try to talk about this with Thor, a being so magical and mythical that all things seemed possible to him. “That's not how it works here,” Tony said. “We don't have magic on Earth. We don't get to make wishes and have them come true.”

“Why not?” Thor asked again. “You are part of the same universe as Asgard. Your planet is made up of the same dust that made my own.”

“Maybe you should see the machine,” Tony said, and he pulled out his phone to text one of the gang in New York. “Yeah, go back to Stark Tower and a take look at it, maybe you can -”

“I've seen it,” Thor said as he removed a particularly fatty piece of ham from his pizza slice. “Bruce took me to it. A very easy game to master, but it did not grant me any wishes.”

“Did you examine it? Did you touch it -”

“Yes. I found nothing odd about it.”

Tony sat back in his chair and shook his head. He'd been hoping to get some sort of good news from Thor, some sort of an explanation or just _anything_ that would help him relax. But Thor was just telling him all the same things he'd come to discover on his own.

“I have disappointed you,” Thor said, and Tony tried to wave him off. “You want answers and I have none. I am not a very good 'god' by the Midgardian standard, am I?”

“How am I supposed to give birth, Thor?” Tony aimed his gaze out of the kitchen window and towards the yard. “That's the thing – I have no idea how to get my son out of me and it's scaring me shitless right now.”

“Loki had a similar concern with Sleipnir, his offspring and my father's eight-legged steed,” Thor said. “In the end he was just fine. His body did what it needed to do.”

Tony disregarded the fact that Thor was saying that his brother gave birth to a horse with eight legs and brought up a more obvious point. “But he's an alien, a demi-god -”

“Yes. And he's made of the same stuff that you are.”

 

*

 

Tony had Happy give Thor a ride to Pasadena, and he offered Thor a place to stay but was not surprised when he politely declined. Tony was due for another trip to Mojave soon and he thought of calling Rhodey, but he knew that the Iron Patriot upgrade was being completed and that Rhodey wasn't always available for phone calls. So Tony turned on the television for background noise and went back to his piano. He looked at a piece of Verdi sheet music and saw the word 'condoleeza' on the page...no. Ms. Rice's parents named her quite well but he wanted a family name for his boy, regardless of the fact that Tony hated Howard too much to name _any_ thing after him and Rhodey was not into the idea of having a son named Rupert, even thought it was his own middle name. Jarvis wasn't that bad of a name. Maybe Rhodey could be talked into Rupert...perhaps Tony could make a deal with him for it – a family name for a family name. Any Stark name but Howard.

Tony's phone rang and he had JARVIS pipe it through the house's PA system. It was Pepper. “Heya, doll. I thought you forgot about me.”

“Hey, are you watching the news?”

Tony turned the television to CNN to find that life as we knew it was pretty much over in Syria, that rebels were tearing the place to shreds and pillaging without mercy. He thought of his suits downstairs and winced, shaking his head and silently apologizing to his boy for wishing he wasn't pregnant for a moment. “Looks horrible,” Tony finally said. “Too bad I've outgrown my suits.”

“Well...they deployed Iron Patriot,” Pepper said, and Tony's blood went cold. “It'll be his first mission but -”

“But it's not ready yet,” Tony said, standing, his voice already going frantic. He was picking up his phone. He'd made sure that Rhodey's Mark 2 had a telephone uplink that the DOD would never be able to find and disable. “They haven't even tested it for -”

“He wanted me to tell you,” she said. “He's already headed over there so you can't -”

Tony hung up on Pepper and dialed Rhodey's number, only to have it go straight to voicemail. He dialed three more times and the same thing happened, and finally he left a message on his fourth try. “You better fucking come back in one piece and if you _ever_ disable your phone uplink again I am _removing it_.”

He put down the phone and stood in his empty living room. The sun was setting and the ocean was vast and beautiful outside of his window. Rhodey was on the other side of the world getting shot at. Little man was moving around a bit more than usual so Tony took a breath. Then another. He rested a hand on his stomach and tried counting and thinking of peaceful things, playing catch and going to carnivals and whatnot, and then his phone rang. He accepted the call and put it to his ear, walking over to the couch as he did. He opened his mouth but Rhodey spoke first.

“If you remove my phone uplink, then I can't call you back.” Tony could hear bomb blasts and the rapid fire of gunshots near Rhodey, the sharp _ping_ of ammunition bouncing off of Iron Patriot's bulletproof hull.

“Get out of there,” Tony said. “Your suit's not even ready, Rhodey, you can't -”

“I'm almost done here, Tony, I'm fine,” Rhodey responded, but Tony could hear his labored breathing, the panic just barely hidden under his cool tone. “I'm here for one very specific target, and the suit's performing fine, too.”

“But you said that the DOD still had a month of testing to do on it -”

“You gotta calm down, man -” Another sharp _ping_ and Rhodey yelped in what was probably surprise, but Tony couldn't help but read it as pain and fear. “I need to go, I'll call you back.”

“Rhodey, please -”

“Tony.” And it was quiet suddenly. “Do me a favor? Take a deep breath.” Tony nearly told Rhodey to shut the fuck up but instead he just did as he was asked, breathing in and then exhaling long and slow. “One more.” He did it again. “Good. Now, I just flew into a manhole and I'm currently talking to you from a Syrian sewer instead of doing what I came here to do.”

“I'm sorry, I didn't -”

“It's okay, really, I get it,” Rhodey said, “but when you panic, _he_ panics, ya know? All the noise and shit must sound awful to you over the phone but this is child's play, it's nothing I haven't seen before. So just do us all a favor and _relax_. Trust me. I'm coming straight to your place after this, okay? Suit's gonna be banged up to shit, anyway, so I'll need you to fix it.”

“Okay, good. Can't wait.”

“Me neither.”

They hung up, and Tony sat on his couch and tried to calm down. Rhodey was right – little man was still shifting around a bit much, clearly piqued by Tony's adrenalin and nerves. It would do him no good to continue pacing around and worrying so he turned the channel away from the news and to one of the satellite music stations – jazz, something kid-friendly and eternally relaxing. He sat there for a long while, through “Moondance” and “The Harlem Suite” and “I Was Born In Love With You” and “My Favorite Things” and a Glen Miller song of which he couldn't quite recall the name.

For the first time in months Tony thought of having a drink but he knew better than that, and it was easy to tell himself no. Texts from the team were rolling in now, all of them clearly aware that Rhodey was deployed and getting shot at. Bruce especially seemed concerned for obvious reasons, and Tony took his advice of melatonin and a shower. It was a little early for sleep meds and Tony was sure it wouldn't work on him in his state, but two hours later he was clean and passing out in his bed, and he slept well, but his dreams were intense.

 

*

 

Tony woke at three in the morning alone in his bed. Where was Rhodey? That skirmish couldn't still be going on, could it? He reached for his phone on the bedside table and dialed Rhodey's number, rubbing a hand over his face and clearing his throat a bit. He was still sleepy but Rhodey should have been there by now. He could make it to Malibu from Syria in two hours at Mach 5.

The call went to voicemail and Tony tried not to groan out loud. “Hey, are you headed this way yet? Call me back.” He hung up with shaking hands and laid back down, the phone on the pillow beside him. Tony was trying to avoid thinking the obvious _(those idiots deployed the fucking thing without thorough testing and now Rhodey's smeared across a desert somewhere and I'm gonna have to tell our son about war and death when he's too fucking young to understand)_ when he realized his shower was on. He looked up and saw light pouring out from beneath the bathroom door, and the sight of Rhodey's dusty boots beside the bed made Tony let out a long, relieved breath. He hoisted himself off of the bed and walked to the bathroom door, swinging it open to see the room full of steam and Rhodey's outline hidden behind the foggy shower door.

Rhodey must have heard him because he turned around then, smiling guiltily as he opened the shower door. “Hey,” he said. “Hop in.”

Tony started removing his clothes with a sneer. “You coulda woken me up,” Tony said. “I just left you the most pathetic voicemail.” Rhodey snorted and Tony tried to suppress a grin but failed miserably. “How's the armor looking?”

“Pretty rough,” Rhodey said, and he took Tony's hand as he entered the shower, helping to steady him as he stepped onto the wet tile. “You can take a look at it in the morning and let us know how long you'll need to fix it.”

“Oh, at least two months,” Tony said casually as he stepped under the water. Rhodey was shaking his head. “Hey, they shouldn't have sent it out without completing the testing phase. I mean with damage like that, Iron Patriot's gonna be out of commission for a while.”

“Pity.” Rhodey leaned forward and kissed Tony's lips. “Pepper said Thor showed up today. Any insights from your conversation with God?”

“He says that my body will do what it needs to do to give birth,” Tony responded bitterly. “Not very comforting at all.”

“And how'd you get like this in the first place?”

“Apparently I made a wish, and it was granted.”

Rhodey stayed silent for a moment, his eyes trained on Tony's belly. “That's it?”

“Yeah.”

Rhodey pondered that for a moment longer, then just quipped, “Guess we're lucky,” before turning Tony around to rub soap along his shoulders and back.

 

* * *

 

Tony began slowly moving the essentials to Mojave. He and Rhodey hadn't really discussed it, but they both understood that they wanted to be close to each other after the baby was born and that Rhodey just couldn't steal away or take an extended leave to have a baby with another man. Malibu was almost three hours from Edwards and Mojave was small and quiet, and Rhodey's house was off the beaten path. So Tony would give birth in Malibu and then he would go to Mojave afterward with the kid, and they'd all hide together for as long as they needed to do so.

Tony supposed he should be coming up with a good plan for covering for the presence of this child, especially when the kid would probably resemble one of his fathers in some aspect. Pepper was being super helpful by taking the lion's share of that project and letting Tony sit back and swell up even further, his belly growing large and heavy into his eighth month. Pepper thought that a “surrogate” explanation would probably work best, but then that would imply that Tony and Rhodey had been together for a while before deciding to have a child and interviewing appropriate women to carry for them. Tony was rather tickled by the fact that they'd be covering for his purely accidental pregnancy with a story that made him sound more responsible than ever.

The news was full of stories about Don't Ask, Don't Tell at the start of Tony's eighth month. It looked like they were gonna be successful in repealing it, and if that happened then Rhodey and Tony could be fathers in public – hell, they could be lovers in public and it would be okay. That was a beautiful thought but Tony wouldn't bank on it, so he just moved a bunch of his stuff to Mojave.

 

*

 

Of course it didn't take Tony two months to repair Iron Patriot, and every now and then Rhodey would get deployed. Always just recon or for a “very specific target,” but that wasn't particularly comforting. Tony stopped with the meltdowns and the threats after the third mission, but he still preferred it if Happy or Pepper would stay over and play cards or something on those nights. Eventually Bruce flew back in from New York to keep watch for when Tony went into labor, seeing as how he could get so stressed sometimes that he'd have cramps that were entirely too similar to contractions. There was still no sign of how Tony would give birth but he was finally letting go of that and trusting his body, using his energy instead to sign fake birth certificates and surrogacy contracts and to send Rhodey cell phone snaps of his swollen ankles and puffy face.

 

It was late one night when Bruce and Tony were up watching reruns of _Soul Train_ and channel-surfing during the commercial breaks. Tony went to stand and Bruce tried to wave him off, saying, “Nah, stay seated, man, what do you need?”

“I'm just pregnant, not disabled. I can get my own water.”

“Your ankles look like canned hams, Tony. Let me.”

Bruce went to the kitchen and Tony continued flipping through the stations, and when he got to CNN he could see that people were celebrating something in front of the White House, rainbow flags and American flags mingling together, service personnel in dress blues – boys kissing boys, girls kissing girls. _Well_. He wasn't sure how this would effect their immediate plans because they still would need to hide for a bit after the baby was born, long enough for Tony's body to return to normal, but this was nice. This was good.

Tony pulled out his cell phone and texted Rhodey. _No more DADT. I expect public hand-holding and ice cream sharing._ It was almost midnight so he didn't expect a response, but he got one all the same. _Deal_.


	7. Chapter 7

Tony wasn't really sure what to do with himself anymore. He'd built over thirty suits since he went into hiding, all using measurements from the days before he turned up pregnant, and he'd worked over the Iron Patriot armor so many times that it was probably the best thing he'd ever made at this point. Pepper would bring him things from R&D and occasionally he'd Skype in to a meeting, never using his camera but providing as much constructive input as he could. No one was asking where he was or why he hadn't been seen in a while, and that was comforting. He wasn't known for being ever-present at SI anyway, even before Pepper became CEO.

Moving around was starting to suck, as he'd predicted – it was as if every time he stood, the baby's weight landed right on his bladder and he had to pee. His ankles were swollen and stiff and his back hurt all the time, it seemed, no matter how many massages he managed to sweet-talk out of Rhodey. He walked with a proper waddle and a hand on his back, and people didn't fawn or swoon over it anymore.

He had Bruce turn his examination room into a legitimate operatory. “Thor says I should just relax or whatever,” Tony explained, “but I want this place to be Caesarian-ready in case the shit goes down and I don't magically grow a birth canal.”

Bruce snickered and kept setting up the gurney. He was on the ground putting it together while Tony sat in a chair and attached the wheels to each leg. “Do you think that's what he meant?”

“It's fairly obvious.”

“Well, for the record,” Bruce said, “I almost hope it's true because I've delivered babies before, but I absolutely _cannot_ perform a c-section, okay? If that's what happens, we're gonna _have to_ call S.H.I.E.L.D. in to get a surgeon who can perform the procedure.”

Tony just nodded. He liked the idea of Bruce delivering their kid – he preferred it, and he still hated it whenever the S.H.I.E.L.D. doctors came around (they were always so awestruck, treated him like a freak) but he wanted little man to be brought into the world as safely as possible. If that took a c-section then so be it.

 

* * *

 

Rhodey was happy about the repeal of DADT. It didn't mean a lot right then but it would in the future, so he shocked Tony by going ahead and telling his mother that they'd be daddies soon. Tony sat by him during the call, and it seemed that Ms. Roberta actually _did_ think that they had been dating for years now, and she bought the surrogate story wholeheartedly. She also insisted that they do “what's only proper” and marry now that it was legal in California _and_ New York, which just made Rhodey give Tony a shifty look before he told his mother that he'd think about it. “What's to think about?” Ms. Roberta said. “It's been long enough, hasn't it?”

 

*

 

“We should look into it.”

Tony glanced up from his dinner of steak and Frito pie. “Gettin' hitched?”

“Yeah,” Rhodey said, cutting into his own steak. “Military benefits for kids are actually pretty sweet.”

Tony imagined himself standing in a hangar at Edwards with all the other families, holding a kid and waiting to welcome Daddy home from a long deployment.

“I mean we'll have to see how all this is gonna work for same-sex families in the military,” Rhodey said, “what changes and what doesn't. It should all be the same across the board.”

“Okay,” Tony said. “I'm in.”

They kept eating. Rhodey had just asked Tony to marry him, and Tony said yes.

 

*

 

Pepper insisted on throwing a baby shower for Tony. He didn't even try to act annoyed or flippant about it – he was genuinely touched by the gesture, shocked into silence on the day that he went into the living room to find bright purple and green streamers all over the place and films of his ultrasounds plastered all over the windows. The entire team came from New York and Thor came over from Pasadena. There was a silver Tiffany baby rattle sent by Hill and Fury, and though everyone brought ridiculously useful and thoughtful gifts, he gave them all their own personal Baby Bjorns, which he'd ordered months ago for them.

Natasha gave them a Big Wheel. Steve gave them a children's easel and non-toxic paint. Clint gave them a Nerf bow and arrow set and Thor gave them a gift certificate to FAO Schwarz, admittedly at Jane's recommendation. Bruce gave them Iron Man and War Machine plushies. Happy gave them a jungle gym that he swore he'd put together once the weather changed, and Pepper gave them thirty coupons for babysitting “on date nights _only_.” Tony gave Rhodey a “Daddle,” which was a saddle made so that kids could ride their parents' backs like a horse. Rhodey gave Tony a ring.

Tony was just breathing and everyone else was silent as Rhodey took the ring out of its case and put it on Tony's finger – a simple platinum band with no engravings or embellishments. “We'll do it for real in the future,” he said. “Just consider this a reminder.”

 

* * *

 

The ninth month was more of a waiting game than anything else. Tony felt the baby “drop” one day, the pressure beneath his ribs lightening and his pelvis growing heavy – a sign that the kid was getting ready for departure. Rhodey made up excuse after excuse to not be near Edwards so he could stay in Malibu, near Tony and the operatory and Bruce. Rhodey helped Tony bathe and gave him back rubs and foot massages, and he didn't laugh at Tony for needing help with standing or sitting up in bed. Tony often felt too weighed down by his pregnancy to have sex but when he didn't they would take their time with it, whisper things to each other and laugh, kiss – no rush. Tony looked forward to pounding Rhodey through the bed again one day but this was nice, this was perfect for right now. They'd lay awake and talk to the kid, ask him which name he preferred and if Rupert really was _that_ _bad_ for 2013. Rhodey ended up agreeing to make a deal over the name with Tony, and Tony liked the Stark family name that Rhodey went with as well. Eventually the three of them came to a decision on the issue.

 

*

 

They wanted _no_ surprises. The pregnancy alone had been enough of a shock, had thrown a monkeywrench into the lives of everyone that it touched, and Tony didn't want to be pushing this kid out in a rainstorm on the U.S.-Mexico border or in a Holiday Inn. Tony didn't go anywhere, didn't leave the house for any reason, and neither would Bruce. He stopped even taking walks around his property and wouldn't go further from the house than the backyard. JARVIS said that the child was now ready for expulsion so it was just a matter of time before Tony went into labor.

So when he _did_ go into labor it was while he was sitting in the living room after a mediocre dinner of Chinese take-out while Rhodey messed around on his tablet and Bruce watched a documentary on television. Tony had felt crampy after dinner but he assumed that it was par for the course, but then the cramps didn't stop and the pain began to radiate throughout his back and legs.

“Hey, Bruce,” Tony said, and Bruce didn't even look away from the television. “I've been cramping for like two hours now.” Bruce looked at him then, eyes going wide as they flicked down to Tony's belly. “Yeah, and my back is fucking killing me.”

“Do you think...?” Bruce was already standing and so was Rhodey, each going to either side of Tony to help him stand. Tony stood with a groan, the weight heavy on his pelvis as the pain increased, became more focused in his womb. And perhaps Bruce and Rhodey could tell because no one was asking any questions anymore. They were just leading him to the elevator that would take him to the operatory downstairs.

 

*

 

Deep breaths. Tony just tried to take deep breaths and focus on Rhodey's voice even though his contractions were horrible, fucking terrible and toe-curling. The pain radiated from his stomach and down between his legs, sharp and to a point, and he tried not to think of the implications of that. He was sitting up on the gurney and holding Rhodey's hand even though it felt cheesy, but there was a fucking baby getting ready to exit his body when his body was never designed to accommodate such a thing, and Tony was trying to calm his panic. Holding Rhodey's hand helped with that a lot.

“I feel like it's kinda silly to tell you that you're doing great,” Rhodey said. “Doing great at what? Breathing? Being in pain? Maybe I should just apologize or something, I don't know.” Tony chuckled through the pain. “I'm sorry I got you pregnant.”

“I'm not,” Tony responded, his voice rough as he breathed through his contractions. “But yeah. This really does suck. I don't know how women do this – why you'd do it more than once.” Tony turned his head towards Bruce, who was preparing pain meds for him. “Any chance of an epidural, doc?”

“We'd need an anesthesiologist for that,” Bruce said, “but I can definitely give you something to relieve the worst of it.”

“Fine,” Tony said, and he tried not to sound like a brat. “I get it – I don't wanna call S.H.I.E.L.D. unless we have to, and we'd probably need them for that.”

“Yeah, sorry. Maybe for your next kid.”

“We are _not_ having another kid,” Tony said, his voice vehement though Rhodey was smiling.

Bruce gave him an injection that made his muscles feel like jelly and his head feel like it was half-full of scotch. Not bad. Tony felt Rhodey's hand on his face and he smiled through the anesthetic haze at him, nodding at whatever he was saying and bringing their clasped hands to his lips to plant a kiss there. “Let's have another kid,” Tony mumbled along Rhodey's thumb, and Rhodey chuckled as he nodded his agreement. “But _you're_ carrying next time, asshole.” Rhodey's chuckle grew into a bright laugh and he leaned in to kiss Tony's hand in return.

Bruce was talking to someone who had just come into the workshop but Tony was still babbling nonsense at Rhodey and kissing his hands, and he cheered happily when he looked up to see Pepper and Happy walking over to him.

“Now or never, eh Boss?” Happy said, and Pepper just had an electric grin smeared across her face as she walked over and stood at Rhodey's side. “How soon 'til he's here?”

“Don't know,” Tony said plainly. “I think we're all pretty much wingin' it here. Bruce, give us an ETA if you can.”

“Well I haven't seen any evidence of a...” Bruce walked to the end of the gurney and lifted the sheet covering Tony's nude lower half, taking a peek between his legs. Tony saw Bruce's face go pale, his eyes widening as if he'd just seen a thing that he never thought he'd ever see. “Soon.” Tony was about to speak up when Bruce gave a quiet “oh _shit_ ” and suddenly there was fluid spilling everywhere, all over the gurney and dripping down to the floor. Tony knew what that meant: he had a birth canal now, and his amniotic sac had just broken. He was actually relieved by that.

Happy and Pepper immediately went to stand at the head of the gurney while Bruce did things at the other end. Rhodey helped Bruce remove the sheets and liners beneath Tony and replace them with clean ones, and Tony grinned at the look on Rhodey's face when he got a peek at what was happening beneath the sheet.

“Is it gross?” Tony asked, and Rhodey laughed as he went to take Tony's hand again, though his expression was still shocked from what he'd seen.

“It's...” Rhodey just looked up at him and tried to force a smile. “You're doing great, Tony.”

“Yeah, you're dilating pretty fast,” Bruce said. “I think you'll be ready to push within the hour.”

Rhodey moved back to the head of the gurney and took Tony's hand again, said more sweet things and kissed his face. The pain meds began to fade and Bruce gave him a bit more, enough to lessen the worst of the ache but not so much that he couldn't feel what was up with his body, and though Tony was in pain he wasn't really that afraid anymore, he just wanted to lay eyes on his son and hold him, kiss him and be sure that the name they chose would fit him. Tony waited patiently for the signal to push, but soon he was cramping beyond what the anesthesia could mask and he knew it was time.

“Okay, Bruce, he's definitely ready.”

“Jesus Christ.” Tony thought that was Bruce speaking at first but it was actually Rhodey, and Tony was laughing as he gave his first real push. Tony felt like nothing was happening, like he was doing all of this grunting and straining for nothing, but then he saw Bruce's lip quirk into a grin right before he said, “Good job, Tony. He's crowning.” The room was silent but Tony knew that Happy and Pepper were nearby and he was glad. Tony gave another push that felt useless but he knew they were getting somewhere – he could see Bruce's arms moving, possibly turning the baby around a bit, and Rhodey peeked down there before looking back with a huge smile that he pressed right against Tony's, barely a kiss.

“Almost there,” Rhodey said. Tony waited for Bruce's nod and he pushed again, his insides throbbing with pain but it didn't matter when he could feel his little man working his way out of his body and into the world, a baby that would have never come to be if Tony hadn't been drunk on a boardwalk one night last summer. If he and Rhodey hadn't gotten wasted on top-shelf whiskey and ended their thirty-year standoff. Another push and Tony thought of how lucky they were, of all the gay couples out there who only wished that they could have a biological child without anyone's help. This boy was a treasure and he was almost here - “One more push, and I think that'll be it,” Bruce said, and Tony took a deep breath and gave it all he had while Rhodey kissed his temple and squeezed his hand, and then all the weight and the pressure was gone and Tony felt oddly light, rather empty, and Rhodey was kissing his face when the shrill cry of a newborn baby pierced the air.

 

* * *

 

Everyone present agreed that Rhodey and Tony had chosen the worst name humanly possible. “We wanted family names,” Tony explained to the gorgeous and wrinkly little thing in his arms. “Those are all family names.”

Jarvis Rupert Edward Stark-Rhodes was born on February 4, 2013. He weighed 7 lb 10 oz and was 19 inches long, and his skin was the color of caramel and his eyes were grey. Maria Stark's eyes had been grey.

Tony and Rhodey made their way up to their bedroom with Bruce carrying J.R. for them, and Tony and Rhodey laid down together on the bed to let Bruce place J.R. on Tony's chest. Bruce brought in plenty of diapers and stocked up the mini-fridge with formula for them, and then he said goodnight and went to his room. Tony's body was still flabby, his stomach still big but soft now, but he wasn't concerned – he knew it would shrink further. He laid with their son on his chest, the baby nuzzling at the flatness there while his little hand held tightly onto Rhodey's thick finger. J.R. was the tiniest thing, so little and so helpless, it seemed – if Tony dropped his hand then the baby would roll right off of him. He hated to even think of it. Rhodey was leaning over and pressing a kiss onto the top of J.R.'s head, stroking his back gently, whispering things that Tony couldn't quite hear himself. They had a son now. A child to take care of, to keep safe and help actualize his potential and his worth. Tony's stomach fluttered – he knew it would be a challenge but he was up to it and so was Rhodey, and Pepper had made sure that no one could legally take this child away from them.

J.R. was tired and nodding off regularly, waking up occasionally to cry and squirm a bit, and eventually Tony moved J.R. over to Rhodey's chest and the three of them drifted into naptime together.

 

Tony woke an hour later to find J.R. and Rhodey still asleep, Rhodey's hand resting on the child's back to keep him in place. Tony sat up and stood, heading into the bathroom, but then he stopped when he walked past his closet and it's full-length mirror. His giant floppy deflated stomach was gone and his abs rippled like they did nine months ago. His ankles weren't swollen and his face wasn't puffy or pimpled. His fingers weren't chubby – he'd have to re-size the ring Rhodey gave him. His back didn't hurt and his joints weren't stiff. His pants were sagging down his hips, and he reached down and tightened the drawstring, taking a moment to pat between his legs and feel that he was once again intact down there, his birth canal gone. He felt good as new, like he'd never been pregnant to begin with – and suddenly that knowledge inspired a horrible thought.

Tony darted back into the bedroom to see Rhodey still asleep on the bed with their son on his chest, exactly like he'd left them. Tony looked down at his body again, baffled, but the feeling faded quickly. So it looked like he wouldn't have to hide out in Mojave after all, but he still intended to go there with the baby for a month or two.

Tony went and took a quick pee before joining his family in bed again, and Rhodey stirred when he climbed back in. Rhodey smiled blearily before noticing Tony's body, blinking and giving him an impressed once-over. “Well, look at you,” he mumbled, and Tony turned to drape his arm across Rhodey and their son, feeling nothing but grateful as he drifted to off to sleep again.

 

* * *

 

Hiding out in Mojave wasn't bad at all. Rhodey wasn't on base that often so they spent many days together getting peed on and pooped on and puked on, and Pepper got them access to a milk-sharing program so J.R. could have real breast milk. She dropped it off regularly and was happy to hang out with the baby while Rhodey and Tony got burgers or just went into town, but that wasn't too often. Tony craved every moment he could have with J.R. and so did Rhodey, and it was almost a month before they finally cashed in the first of their date night babysitting coupons. They brunched at The Ivy and made no attempt to make it _not_ look like a date, and they texted Pepper about four times an hour while they were gone. They got back to Mojave to find both of them asleep on the couch. They left Pepper there and covered her with a blanket, then took J.R. to bed.

J.R. had a crib but it was a long time before Tony or Rhodey was ready to let him sleep alone, well into his second month. J.R. still wasn't sleeping through the night but they had baby monitors and the whole bit, and his room was just next door, but that first night was difficult. It was almost a week before Tony could just let himself go to sleep without jumping up at every sound he heard.

Rhodey was Daddy, and Tony was Papa. “I really hope he calls me 'Pops' when he's older,” Tony said.

 

*

 

J.R. turned three months old. It was time to go public. They started quietly by going on dates in well-photographed bars and restaurants, holding hands and saying nothing when paparazzi asked if they were dating. Then Tony's ring got noticed and they were suddenly all over the tabloids and gossip sites, “are they or aren't they?” being the most common headline. Rhodey was questioned by his superiors and they recommended that he and Tony make some sort of a statement, if only to get the media to stop calling the Air Force press office. But they didn't. They just went ahead and got married, knowing that their marriage license would end up getting out, and it did. A couple of weeks later Tony was carrying J.R. in a sling and meeting Rhodey at Boa for lunch, and neither of them made any comment still when asked about the child or their relationship. And then Pepper released a statement that she'd written months ago, a short thing explaining that they were married and that they'd had a son with the help of a surrogate. That was when Tony received his first ever non-professional email from Maria Hill – it was just three words: _I knew it._ He asked her how she knew Rhodey was the father, and she responded _when I saw you together._

 

*

 

New York was great to visit because the Tower was a playpen for kids and adults alike, and the team acted as though they were born to be aunts and uncles. No one was weird or awkward with the baby or avoided being around him. He was six months old now and active, energetic, wide-awake and curious about everything around him. His eyes were looking sharp and bright like Tony's (and Maria's) and his smile was showing evidence that it would be wide and lined like Rhodey's. They couldn't bring themselves to cut his dark hair so it was big and poofy and Natasha would gently braid it into fat cornrows whenever he would sit still enough for it. She would sing Russian lullabies to him and Bruce would make congee for J.R. The kid loved rainstorms because Thor would make the lightning dance around to rock and jazz for him. Clint would juggle for him sometimes, but most of the time he just let J.R. nap in his carrier while he worked on his bow. Steve was giving him “art lessons” which mostly entailed Steve drawing the skyline while J.R. threw water-based paint in every direction.

Having the team around meant that date nights were easier to arrange, and eventually they got more comfortable with going out and leaving J.R. in the team's care overnight. They went to the Knicks' first home game of the season and got their photos taken more than Jay-Z and Beyonce, who were seated courtside as well. They had a beer or two and then went home with every intention of fucking until they couldn't stand it anymore.

They had been worried at first about Tony's mysterious fertility making a reappearance but after a few months it was evident that Tony would not be getting pregnant again, and they took to each other like the newlyweds that they were. Rhodey hadn't really been able to learn Tony's body before it started to change and he seemed to want to make up for that, always going slow, kissing and touching Tony with purpose, like he was memorizing it. Rhodey liked making Tony insane with his hands and his mouth, sucking his cock and fingering him until he was whimpering, licking his ass slowly and thoroughly until Tony was pushing back at him, murmuring in a daze, and then Rhodey would slide his cock in so smoothly that sometimes Tony would come on the first stroke.

Oh, Tony could be cruel, too, when he would straddle Rhodey's lap and stroke him slowly, taking half an hour to get him throbbing and another fifteen minutes edging Rhodey, sliding his thumb around the head and watching Rhodey roll his head back languidly, his hands on Tony's ass and teasing him. Eventually Tony would have mercy and ease himself down onto Rhodey so slowly, and all he would have to do is give a slight squeeze and then Rhodey would come, hips stuttering and the warmest endearments falling off of his lips.

Then they would sleep and Tony would sometimes dream that he was still pregnant, but he felt pretty sure that this was a one-time deal with him, Rhodey, and J.R. If they wanted to have another kid then they'd adopt, there were so many kids in the world who needed good homes anyway, but Tony had to admit it – he understood what his father meant now when Howard called him his greatest creation. Tony looked at J.R. and cried sometimes, just sobbed his stupid eyes out because he knew that he'd never be able to create anything so fucking marvelous ever again.

 

* * *

 

Tony was happy. This was perfect. He was married to a person who was his equal, his match in every possible way, and they had a son that was learning to walk now and loved his “aunts” and “uncles” and his grandmother probably the most. They'd take J.R. to Coney Island and he would wave at photographers, slap his hands against the glass casing of _Zoltar Speaks_ because he recognized it from the one they had in their New York home. He absolutely loved carnivals and Ferris wheels. He had baby dress blues that he'd wear whenever they had military events to attend. The Human Rights Campaign attempted to give them an award just for daring to attend military functions as a family, but they declined the offer as graciously as possible. Being famous didn't make them any braver than any other gay military family.

Tony worried about how publicly they lived their lives, worried for the day that some S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist would get fired and decide to spill his guts about J.R., but then again who would believe that Tony Stark got pregnant and carried a fetus to term? Who would believe that about _any_ man on Earth? The unbelievable nature of how this child came to be turned out to be a blessing in the end, and Tony was grateful for that. He framed the card that Happy had been thoughtful enough to pick up off of the ground that morning in Malibu – _your wish has been granted_ – and hung it over J.R.'s crib. Tony's wish had been granted – more than one wish, things he didn't realize he'd wanted so badly back then. All he'd really wanted was Rhodey but in the end he got a family. Tony couldn't believe it sometimes. Who ever makes a wish and actually has it granted? Who ever gets what they want – _exactly_ what they want, something that they truly desire in their heart? Yes, they were extremely lucky.


End file.
